


Heart of a Lion

by justwhatialwayswanted



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Gen, Gryffindor Regulus, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Marauders, Marauders' Era, a particularly loving description of interior decorating, because what is sad, but it's very minimal, i don't know how to tag things, ish, it's like one line, regulus has better things to do than worry about relationships, they're out of Hogwarts already
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-07-26 03:02:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 26,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7557562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justwhatialwayswanted/pseuds/justwhatialwayswanted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even before he goes to Hogwarts, Regulus knows he wants to be a Gryffindor. There’s no way he’ll let himself be a snake, like his mother, his father, his aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, and every other person on the family tree. He likes Sirius much better than the rest of his family, anyway.<br/>So when the Sorting Hat asks him where he thinks he belongs, Regulus knows what to say.</p><p>AU where Regulus is sorted into Gryffindor. This doesn’t actually really discuss their school days, it’ll jump right to after Regulus has graduated, but I do want to write about his time at Hogwarts at some point. Also PSA, this is unedited, so I’ll be going through and changing things that don’t make sense or are otherwise inconsistent. If you see something confusing or weird, please let me know so I can fix it!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first longer fic that I've actually completed, so I'm kind of excited about it! I've already finished the story, so I'll post a chapter every day. If I change something in previous chapters I'll let you know in the notes if you need to read it to understand what's going on now.  
> The other chapters will be longer than this one, so don't be disheartened by how short this is!

Regulus didn’t expect the Sorting Hat to ask him where he wanted to go.

As he’d sat down, he was resignedly thinking,  _ It’ll be Slytherin, _ because all his family were Slytherin.

Except Sirius, of course, and Regulus would be lying if he said he didn’t want to be just a little bit like his big brother. They were both dark-haired and gray-eyed, but that was where the similarities began and ended, according to their parents.

Maybe the Sorting Hat sensed that little bit of resentment that he didn’t know how to be different, didn’t know how to set himself apart. He wasn’t Sirius, but he’d quite like to be, to have the courage to tell his parents they were wrong.

Regulus didn’t think he could do that, but then, he’d never tried, and Sirius certainly hadn’t done anything like that before he’d started going to Hogwarts.

Maybe being in Gryffindor was the key to being Gryffindor-like. It would explain why the Hat asked him where he wanted to go, after all: if everyone got more like their House said they would be after they were sorted in there, then whatever they were originally suited for didn’t matter, did it?

So he didn’t need to be the sort of person who would tell their parents that they were ridiculously wrong. Or at least he didn’t need to be  _ yet. _ If he was in Gryffindor, he would  _ learn _ to be that person.

So when the Sorting Hat asked, Regulus thought for a moment and then replied in his head, as politely as he could,  _ I’d like to be in Gryffindor, please. _

The Hat sounded rather pleased when it said,  _ A fine choice. _ Then it shouted “GRYFFINDOR!” to the Great Hall, and there was only a split second of silence, less than he’d expected, less time for people to try and wrap their minds around the second Black son being a Gryffindor as well, before his new house started cheering, with Sirius and his friends, the third-year boys, loudest of all.


	2. About Seven Years Later

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I forgot to update yesterday. I'm uploading chapter 2 right after this as well to make up for it!

“Harry’s going to play Chaser when he’s at Hogwarts,” James declares. “A son of mine has to be a point-winner.”

“Absolutely not,” Lily counters. “He’ll play Beater. An inconvenient Bludger can change the whole game. You’re insane if you think  _ my _ child is not going to hold that sort of power.”

“Powaw!” Harry attempts.

“I really don’t think—” Remus starts to say, probably commenting on how it’s ridiculous to try and predict what Quidditch position Harry might play before he’s even two years old, but then the doorbell rings before he can finish his sentence.

“That must be Peter,” Regulus says. 

“Late as usual,” Sirius agrees.

Peter rushes into the sitting room, nearly tripping over Harry’s toy broomstick, which has been left in the middle of the hallway again in favor of something else more interesting to the toddler. Harry is a cheerful boy, walking and flying and talking a bit now, but Regulus can’t say much for his attention span.

Then again, considering that James is his father, Regulus supposes he shouldn’t be surprised.

“Sorry I’m late,” Peter says, sliding on to the end of the sofa. “I was working on  _ the thing,” _ he adds meaningfully.

James, Lily, Sirius, and Remus all nod like they understand, while Harry knocks over his tower of blocks, laughing with glee at the destruction, and Regulus tries in vain to remember what  _ the thing _ might be.

“Regulus, can you go get some tea for Peter?” Lily asks. “The water should still be hot, I think, but you’d better check just to make sure.”

And then it’s evident that they want him absent to discuss  _ the thing,  _ and Regulus is feeling contrary at the moment, maybe because he just doesn’t like being in the dark, so he says, “Come on, Peter, you can choose your tea while I heat up the water.”

Lily sags a little against the couch when her maneuver doesn’t isolate Regulus out of earshot, but Peter nods and stands up to follow Regulus into the kitchen.

Once the kettle’s boiling but hasn’t started whistling yet, and Peter is inspecting Lily and James’s stock of tea, Regulus asks, “So, what’s  _ the thing?” _

Peter jumps a little. “Um, it’s a thing.” 

“Uh-huh.”

“That Lily and James are helping me on. For the Order.”

“Okay.” And when Peter goes back to choosing his tea (he takes it very seriously), Regulus takes the opportunity to take a look into his mind.

Not that it’s something he regularly does, but he didn’t learn Legilimency for it to go to waste, and it’s frankly quite obvious that Peter is lying. And the only thing that Regulus can think of that the others might collectively be lying to him about is something to do with plans for his nineteenth birthday, which is in a few weeks.

So Regulus looks in, just a glance to see what Peter’s thinking about. The truth always rises to the surface when one lies.

Peter’s mind is a whirlwind, jumping from one thought to another like he can’t decide which is the most important. Knowing him, he probably can’t. Regulus spots flashes of memories, all coming to the forefront of Peter’s thoughts for a brief moment before vanishing back into the maelstrom. Peter transforming into his Animagus form for the first time, all of them sneaking out of Hogwarts one night when Regulus was in sixth year and the others in seventh, lots of things focusing on all of them. The night Regulus said  _ ‘stuff it’ _ to regulations and moved into the others’ dorm, instead of staying with the people in his year. There’s also a fragment of a pop song playing in Peter’s head, some brand-new Celestina Warbeck hit that the radio can’t let more than ten minutes pass by without playing. 

Regulus isn’t grateful for that last thing, as he’s heard the song, My Amortentia (as if it wasn’t bad enough without that atrocity of a title), enough times to quite happily never hear its name again.

But that’s not all that he sees. Overshadowing the memories of Peter’s friends are more recent ones, darker, more sinister. The only reason Regulus hadn’t noticed them before was because of their sheer pervasiveness. Peter’s whole mind was suffused with that darkness. He hadn’t thought to look closer at it, because some people simply had minds that focused on the darker memories, making happy ones more like tiny golden islands in a vast ocean. In that scenario, who would look closely at the ocean?

Regulus does, though, and promptly stumbles a bit, hitting the corner of a drawer with his knee and clutching the edge of the counter before he falls over.

Peter turns, his chosen tea in hand. “Is everything alright?”

Regulus doesn’t answer immediately.

Because no, everything is  _ not _ alright. Everything is, as a matter of fact, quite possibly quickly leading to some or all of the people in the sitting room dying.

Peter, apparently, is the Secret Keeper, the one singlehandedly responsible for keeping James, Lily, and Harry safe.  _ Not _ Sirius, like everyone who knew about the Fidelius Charm had been told. They must have switched at the last moment for security, selecting the  _ least _ likely person to be chosen to keep their cottage secure. They’ve chosen Peter.

And he’s thinking about giving the Potters up to Lord Voldemort.

When Dumbledore advised Lily and James to go into hiding, he vaguely mentioned something about a prophecy and Voldemort hunting them, then forced the subject to drop. Sirius, after numerous private meetings with Dumbledore and the Potters, quietly told Remus, Regulus, and Peter that the prophecy discusses Voldemort and a group of people, Lily and James being the only identifiable ones, who will take him down. He added that Dumbledore has considered the possibility of the group being the Marauders, but discarded that for lack of evidence. The man is a great believer in ‘not in danger until proven so.’

Lily, James, and Harry immediately went into hiding, and to this day Regulus has believed that Sirius is the Secret Keeper. He and Sirius normally confide most things in each other; war is not a time for unnecessary secrets. Regulus, at least, revels in occasionally being able to speak his mind without adjusting in case a Death Eater is nearby.

When Regulus finally looks up at Peter, he smiles self-deprecatingly and says, “That was certainly unexpected.”

“Why in the world would you  _ not _ expect that? I’ve been worried about you tripping over something and breaking your neck since the day I met you.”

And with that, Regulus knows Peter doesn’t have even an inkling of suspicion. “Oh, do be quiet.”

“Go back to the sitting room,” Peter says. “I can make my own tea, and we wouldn’t want you spilling boiling hot water all over the kitchen.”

“No, that’d be bad,” Regulus agrees, already making his way back into the sitting room and his spot on the couch.

“I heard a crash, are you alright?” James asks.

“Fine,” Regulus says, even though he shakes his head and nods indicatively toward the kitchen, where the kettle’s just started to whistle.

The other four look confused (Harry is uninterested in the whole conversation), but Remus hastily says, “I just think that it’s  _ possible _ Harry might go for Keeper.”

“Absolutely  _ not,” _ James and Lily say in unison, and they’re off again.

 

Sirius is the first one to get up, since he has to go to his shift at the Leaky Cauldron. Peter goes with him, mentioning a book he’s been meaning to buy in Diagon Alley.

Once they’re out the door, James, Lily, and Remus look at Regulus expectantly.

“We need a different Secret Keeper,” Regulus says without preamble.

“What’s wrong with Sirius?” Remus asks instantly, which makes Regulus feel a little bit better about Sirius not telling him about the switch. If he didn’t tell Remus either, then the secrecy must be something mandated by Dumbledore himself.

Lily sighs. “Sirius isn’t the Secret Keeper. He thought he would be too obvious a choice, so we had Dumbledore switch the charm to Peter and told everyone it was Sirius, because he was right, he  _ would _ be the obvious choice. I’m sorry we couldn’t tell you two, but we needed to keep it to as few people as possible.”

James simply looks catatonic.

“Wait, how did you know they need to switch?” Remus continues.

“I used Legilimency.”

“You  _ what?” _

“I taught myself Occlumency and Legilimency while you all were becoming Animagi,” Regulus explains quickly, and Remus nods in understanding, recognizing that now isn’t exactly the time to interrogate Regulus about mind magic. He would’ve joined the others in their illegal endeavour, but Regulus was allergic to mandrake and the idea of keeping one in his mouth for a month didn’t appeal. The others had accepted that excuse, since they’d already seen him break out into hives after a few Herbology classes. “Sirius was the one who suggested it. Peter is, well, he’s —”

“Going to give us up to You-Know-Who,” Lily says.

His silence is answer enough. She promptly gets up off the couch and takes Harry by the hand to go put him up for a nap, leaving the tower of blocks on the floor.

“He  _ can’t,” _ James says as soon as his son is safely out of earshot. “This  _ is _ Peter we’re talking about, right? He’s one of us, one of the Marauders. He wouldn’t just  _ betray _ us, he’s one of our best friends.” He looks around at the others. “Right?”

“I don’t want to believe it either,” Remus says.

“But you do.”

Remus glances at Regulus, then nods. “Peter will always befriend the most powerful player on the field, you know. Right now, that’s He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. None of us here  _ wants _ to believe that he’s a traitor. But unless Regulus is wrong, and I trust both him and his Legilimency, we have no other choice. Frankly, I’m glad we found out now, instead of being caught off guard by an attack.”

“He could have asked us for protection against You-Know-Who, though,” James frowns. “If he was being threatened, we could have helped him. Dumbledore could have helped him. He didn’t need to sell us out.”

“He did, though,” Lily says, always the pragmatist. “So now we need to decide what to do.”

“Well, obviously we can’t just let him give you up,” Regulus replies. “We all know that we wouldn’t be able to withstand a direct attack by You-Know-Who. That’s why we put the Fidelius Charm in place in the first place.”

“What can we do, though?” Remus asks. “Obliviate him?”

“That would make people suspicious, though,” James says. “As far as anyone else is concerned, he’s loyal to the Order.”

“Could you just move house, then?” Regulus asks.

“Moving would be ridiculously inconvenient,” Lily objects. “Not to mention expensive.  _ And _ it would expose us until we could re-cast the Fidelius Charm.”

“You could re-cast the Fidelius Charm  _ here, _ though,” Remus suggests.

James looks thoughtful. “That could work.”

“I’ll tell Sirius tonight when he’s home from work,” Regulus says.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the next chapter! I'll return to updating once a day tomorrow.

As Regulus predicted, telling Sirius about his discovery is worse. He ends up putting his elder brother in a Full Body-Bind so Regulus can explain his plan.

“Peter doesn’t know any of us know he’s a traitor,” Regulus says. “So we can’t exactly go demand to know what he thinks he’s doing. We need a different Secret Keeper, but we need to switch in a way that doesn’t make him suspicious. Right now, the fact that we know and he doesn’t know we know is an advantage, and we can’t ruin that. If he feels threatened, he’ll tell Lord Voldemort that much faster. He hasn’t said anything yet, but if we scare him we’ll lose our opportunity to prevent him from saying anything. Do you understand?”

The only movement Sirius can make is rolling his eyes, but Regulus takes that to mean he’s acquiesced and releases him from the Full Body-Bind.

“I’m an idiot” is the first thing Sirius says.

“In what sense?”

Sirius glares at his wand like it’s personally offended him. “I was going to be the Secret Keeper, but I told James and Lily to make it Peter instead.”

“I know, Lily and James told me and Remus.”

_ “Nobody _ would guess him, Regulus. And who would think that he would give them up? He’s one of our best friends, it should’ve gone perfectly.”

“That  _ is _ true,” Regulus says. “But you don’t have Legilimency, so it isn’t your fault, because I  _ do _ and I didn’t catch anything either. My guess is he learned basic Occlumency, but didn’t go past learning to keep his mind blank when expecting an attack. Why would he expect me to use Legilimency while we were making tea? Anyway, you can redeem yourself, as we  _ do _ need a new Secret Keeper, and if we switch before Peter tells You-Know-Who, he won’t be able to tell at all. Be glad I caught it now.”

“So how do we switch?”

 

That’s the same question James asks when the five of them meet up again in the Potters’ sitting room to discuss their options.

“I don’t know,” Regulus says, and all of them look at Lily questioningly. 

“Fidelius Charms are beyond NEWT-level magic,” Lily says. “They’re highly specialized and usually only people working in Magical Law Enforcement learn them, because who else would need to know? Dumbledore did it for us.”

“To Dumbledore it is, then.”

 

Regulus can’t go with Remus and Sirius to meet with Dumbledore. Lily and James have to stay within the confines of the Fidelius Charm. Remus and Sirius have scheduled the meeting to be midday, after Remus’s shift at St. Mungo’s ends and before Sirius’s at the Leaky Cauldron starts. However, that’s right in the middle of Regulus’s workday.

“Hey, Black, does Bagnold have any free time today for a meeting?”

Regulus looks up at Alice Longbottom, head of the Auror department. Even if she’s wearing heels, which she is, the only time Regulus ever has to look up at her is when he’s seated. Then again, he’s tall enough that he’s hard put getting his knees to fit under his desk, so perhaps that isn’t all that remarkable. “I don’t think so, no.”

“Well, if she does, let me know,” Alice requests, then when Regulus nods, she turns and makes her way out of the reception room, where Regulus’s desk is located because Millicent Bagnold doesn’t believe in giving her assistants their own offices, even if they need them  _ quite _ a bit. Still, it’s better than the last Minister, Harold Minchum. He gave Regulus an office, but he was also a disgusting person and spent more time yelling at his employees than doing practically anything else. Besides, he would activate the panic rock all the time, just because he liked having people at his beck and call.

In the Minister’s office, there’s a stone that, when activated, sends a message to every Auror and security guard, no matter where they are or what time it is, alerting them that they need to report directly to the Minister’s office as quickly as possible. Its official name is the Stone of Assistance, but most people, including the current Minister herself, call it the panic rock. Minchum was quite a fan of this rock, and spent a lot of time ‘checking to make sure it still worked.’ There was one week-long stretch where Regulus could hardly get anything done because he was busy corraling Aurors hyped up on adrenaline into a side room and informing them that the Minister was actually perfectly fine.

So, despite the lack of office, Regulus  _ much _ prefers Bagnold to his last boss. As does seemingly everyone.

As Alice is making her way out, she mumbles something to herself. Regulus strains to catch the words, which he realizes are  _ “Got to meet with the Minister, got to meet with the Minister” _ over and over.

She sounds a little crazed.

Normally, Regulus would find a spot in the Minister’s schedule to squeeze in a meeting and send a memo to both involved parties informing them of it, but something strikes him as off about the whole encounter. The Auror department usually keeps to themselves, and they communicate with the Minister as little as possible. (Somehow, their training program has ended up cultivating a deep and profound hatred of bureaucracy. Alice pretends to not know how that happened, and everyone else follows her.)

And he really doesn’t like his newfound habit of using Legilimency on everyone who appears even the littlest bit suspicious, but there were three more front-page murders in the  _ Daily Prophet _ this morning and everyone’s on edge.

When he dives into Alice’s mind, just a few moments before she’s out the door, all he sees is blankness, but not the kind that reveals when someone is Occluding. Instead of the smooth emptiness of Occlumency, Alice’s thoughts are cloaked in an oppressive darkness that doesn’t feel like the affable woman she usually is. Regulus can feel her mind churning behind the barrier, but he can’t tell what she’s thinking.

He hears something, though.

There’s a voice in Alice’s mind, raspy and male and  _ familiar, _ instructing her to go back to her office and not to worry about securing a meeting with the Minister.

The voice belongs to Regulus’s Uncle Rodolphus, and Alice Longbottom is Imperiused.

Regulus flips through Bagnold’s schedule, looking for empty spots that he can fill with appointments and urgent work so she doesn’t have any time to talk to Alice, but a lunch meeting set for the next Tuesday catches his eye.

It’s with Rodolphus Lestrange, and Regulus has no doubts that his uncle, who he knows to be a Death Eater, just like the rest of his and Sirius’s dysfunctional family, is trying to put the Minister for Magic under the Imperius curse.

He sends an owl to Rodolphus, informing him that the meeting has been canceled due to the Minister’s unexpectedly heavy workload. Then, for good measure, he sends one to James and Lily, asking them to inform the rest of the Order that Alice has been Imperiused by Lestrange and can’t come to any more Order meetings until it’s confirmed that she’s back to normal. The Potters don’t have much to do, since they can’t leave their house, so they’re occupying their time by handling all the information coming in from Order members. It’s the best way that they can help.

 

Just before Regulus’s lunch break, Sirius bursts into the room.

“What are you doing here?” Regulus asks, but Sirius just says, “Can’t I visit my little brother?” and presses a piece of paper into his hand.

“You’re not supposed to visit me while I’m at  _ work,” _ Regulus says mildly as he unfolds the paper. The writing on it is Sirius’s.

 

_ The residence of James, Lily, and Harry Potter is Silverbirch Cottage in Godric’s Hollow. Burn this paper once you’ve memorized it. _

 

Regulus feels his mind flood with memories of what the Potters’ home is like, all of which he hadn’t realized he’d forgotten. They must have already redone the Fidelius Charm.

“I know, you’ve got work to do, but I just had to come tell you that the meeting went great!”

“That’s good,” Regulus says. “Did you tell Peter? And did you tell him why we had to switch?”

Sirius rolls his eyes. “Yes, Mother, Moony made me.”

They’d decided that the best course of action, to prevent Peter from getting suspicious, was to tell him that they were constantly switching Secret Keepers for the sake of security. After all, it was always possible for a Secret Keeper to accidentally tell someone, so they would have to refresh the charm to ensure that only the people they wanted to get in could get in.

“Good. Now will you go home and let me do my job?” He lights the piece of paper on fire with his wand and Vanishes the ashes.

“Fine, fine, I can tell when I’m not wanted,” Sirius says, and he goes.

There’s a tapping at the window and Regulus sees the same two owls he’d sent to Rodolphus Lestrange and James and Lily, respectively.

He opens the one from Lestrange first. It’s what he’d expected, a polite reply saying that he regrets the cancellation of their meeting and would like to be informed when the Minister’s workload is back to a manageable amount so he can reschedule their lunch.

Then he opens the one from James and Lily and sends the owls back off to the Communications department. It’s Lily’s handwriting, telling him that they’re going to have an Order meeting at half past eight that night, in Godric’s Hollow. Sirius is telling the necessary members about the location of the cottage and the meeting at that moment, but seeing as Regulus already knows, there was no reason for Sirius to make another visit. She adds that Dumbledore has some new information he wants to share with them as well, and not to expect anything good.

 

Regulus is early, as he gets off work long before eight-thirty and spends most of his free time in Godric’s Hollow anyway, and watches as the rest of the Order members arrive. 

Fabian and Gideon Prewett arrive first, with Marlene McKinnon and Dorcas Meadowes following not long after, and the rest arrive individually or in small groups. Severus Snape walks in by himself. So does Frank Longbottom, without his wife. He looks a little frazzled, but Regulus supposes being told that your wife has been Imperiused and is no longer trustworthy can do that to you. Sirius and Rubeus Hagrid are last to appear, probably because Sirius has been rushing around collecting Order members and got to Hagrid last.

James stands by the door and warns everyone walking in that Harry’s just been put to bed, and if they value their noses, they’ll be quiet so as to not wake him up. That explains the timing of the meeting, as Harry’s bedtime is eight o’clock.

Peter doesn’t show.

They crowd into the Potters’ sitting room, and Dumbledore explains why he’s called such an urgent meeting.

“As some of you may know already, the Death Eaters have begun Imperiusing people with power that they can manipulate. One of their victims is our own Alice Longbottom, chosen because of her position as the head of the Auror department, who is not here tonight for precisely that reason. Another is the professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts, Opaline Hingle. Regulus has discovered that Rodolphus Lestrange is the culprit, and that he intends to Imperius the Minister for Magic next.”

_ That’s an instant recipe for conversation, _ Regulus notes as what seems like every single member of the Order turns to their neighbor and starts saying something in a hushed voice. They do notice James’ glare, though, and keep their voices to barely above a whisper. Nobody loses their nose.

“The DADA professor?” Emmeline Vance asks over the babble from her perch atop the couch armrest. “What would the Death Eaters want with her?”

“Teachers have power over many people,” Dumbledore replies, and doesn’t elaborate. “In addition, we have news about another one of our members. Many of you may have noticed that Peter Pettigrew is not present tonight.”

There’s pin-drop silence. When somebody doesn’t turn up to a meeting, it’s usually because they’re dead.

“We have received information that Peter Pettigrew is a traitor and would like to confirm that with you, Severus.”

This time, nobody speaks, they just turn to watch Snape at the back of the room. He’s only been in the Order for a few weeks, and everyone except Dumbledore is still on edge around him, including Regulus. When they were at Hogwarts, he nearly duelled Snape several times over who checked out a book on mind magic first. They’d come to a shaky agreement to meet up every two weeks at the library and exchange books, but had still nearly come to blows when Regulus hadn’t quite mastered a concept yet and needed to keep a book for another two weeks. That had been one of the more terrifying encounters in his life so far. Snape had mastered the ability to look downright sinister at a frighteningly young age, and that’s not making it easier for him now. He’s quite lucky that the Order collectively trust Dumbledore’s judgment.

“He’s an informant for the Dark Lord,” Snape says in his soft, yet cutting, voice. “Or at least I assume he is. I’ve seen him a few times, but I thought he was just more undercover of a spy than I was, since I didn’t know. But I know he’s not a full-fledged Death Eater.”

“How do you know that?” Elphias Doge asks suspiciously.

“There are a few reasons, the most pressing of which is that it’s  _ Pettigrew.” _

Laughter bubbles up quickly from everyone who knew Pettigrew in school. He’s quite definitively a coward, and stays out of actually getting his hands dirty as often as possible. It shouldn’t be a good argument for Pettigrew’s status of not being an actual Death Eater, but it is.

But the laughter dies off almost as quickly as it started, as everyone’s reminded why they’re laughing.

“Besides that, though,” Snape continues, “there’s been no ceremony to give him the mark, and if there had been one I would have been there.”

“And has anyone said anything about Rodolphus Lestrange Imperiusing anyone?” Regulus asks.

“Not to my knowledge, but he may well have been given a confidential mission by the Dark Lord. The Lestranges rank higher in the inner circle than I do, so it’s entirely possible that he has a task that I don’t know about.”

That’s not much comfort to anyone, though the chances of them being entirely at ease when they have to rely almost exclusively on information provided by a double agent, even if he ostensibly is on their side, are frankly low enough already.


	4. Chapter 4

The next day is a somber one for Regulus. Alice wanders up to his desk again to ask about meeting with the Minister, and he sends a memo to Frank to ask him to watch over his wife, though Regulus is sure that Frank is already doing just that. And it only reassures him a little, anyway.

That evening, when Regulus has been home for a few hours and Sirius is getting ready to leave, a Ministry owl taps on the window.

“What does the Ministry want with us?” Sirius wonders. “Something to do with your job?”

Regulus shrugs and lets the owl in, taking the envelope. The owl leaves, apparently not having been instructed to wait for a response.

His heart sinks when he opens the envelope and sees the letter, which is on the distinctive, hideous olive green stationery of the Office of Births, Deaths, and Marriages. Anything to do with their family can’t be good.

Then he reads the letter and sits down hard in a kitchen chair

Sirius is there in a moment. “Regulus, what is it?” He takes the letter and reads it and then lets out a shout of victory. “The hag’s kicked the bucket at last!”

“Respect the dead,” Regulus mutters, though it’s more out of habit than anything. He hasn’t seen their mother in over a year, and he knows Sirius hasn’t either. There was no love lost between the two of them and their parents once not one but both the Black children were sorted into Gryffindor, befriended Muggle-borns, and started questioning why their family was so inbred.

Honestly, Regulus should have started questioning the last one  _ far _ earlier, because knowing the answer was all he needed to cement his blood-traitor status into place.

Sirius is throwing Floo Powder into the fireplace. “The Leaky Cauldron!” Then he sticks his head into the fire, presumably to speak with Tom, his boss, and persuade him to let Sirius skip his shift tonight.

That’s confirmed when Sirius says to somebody on the other side of the fire, “Mum’s dead!” and then, “Don’t be  _ sorry, _ I’ve been waiting for her to croak for  _ years!” _ He agrees to take an extra shift tomorrow to make up for the one he’s missing tonight and says his goodbyes to Tom before withdrawing his head from the fire and turning to Regulus.  _ “And _ we finally get our inheritance!”

There’s a copy of their mother’s will attached to the letter, which Regulus takes out. Almost immediately, he notices that he was given the house, and everything in it, including Kreacher, their old house-elf.

Really, the poor elf is bordering on decrepit, so Regulus doesn’t imagine he’ll give Kreacher too much work, certainly nothing bordering on the usual workload of a house-elf. He definitely knows how to do his own laundry and make his own bed. It’ll be nice to see him again, though. He always liked Kreacher, even if Kreacher didn’t much like Gryffindor.

“So what did I get?” Sirius asks, reading over Regulus’s shoulder without even waiting for an answer. “Well, at least I didn’t get stuck with the house.”

“I’m selling it,” Regulus declares.

“Personally, I would burn it down, but whatever works for you.”

“I get the house and the material possessions. We’re splitting the Gringotts vault, and that’s probably already been done by the goblins. But if you like, we can go look through everything and burn everything that we can’t sell.”

“Like the cabinet full of skeletons.”

“Exactly.”

Regulus thinks for a moment. “Actually, I can have Kreacher sort out what we can resell and what we can’t.”

“Are you going to sell him too?”

“No, he’s old, Sirius. I don’t expect he’ll last very long, and besides, he’s always been bound to the Black household. And we can always have him do the dishes, since you never seem to manage it yourself.”

“Well, that sounds excellent to me.”

 

At the next Order meeting, Dumbledore says something that strikes Regulus as odd.

“We need to take out his support,” Dumbledore declares. “That’s the only way that we can halt his progress. Voldemort by himself is not nearly as dangerous as Voldemort and his Death Eaters.”

It’s a sentiment that Dumbledore has expressed many times, but just this time, it doesn’t sound right. Regulus is sitting next to Snape, who stiffens right when Regulus is thinking,  _ That doesn’t quite ring true. _ On a hunch, Regulus glances at Snape’s mind, only to discover the tell-tale blankness that means he’s Occluding, and much more skillfully than most people can. Regulus can’t break into Snape’s thoughts if he tries.

_ That _ doesn’t make sense either. Why would Snape be Occluding at an Order meeting, especially given the amount of energy he’s putting into his shield? Regulus doesn’t remember any other time that he’s done so, though of course he tries not to make a habit of looking through people’s heads. So it doesn’t make sense. Unless, of course, Snape knows that he’s thinking something hidden from even Order members, and is Occluding so he can think in private without running the risk of being eavesdropped on.

Regulus makes up his mind to corner Snape and question him, and that’s exactly what he does once the meeting is over and people are leaving. He tells Sirius to go home without him and follows Snape out, catching up to him just before he Apparates away.

“Hey, Snape!”

Snape turns. “Black, what do you want?”

“To talk,” Regulus says.

Snape rolls his eyes, but he also doesn’t Apparate away, so Regulus figures he’s got an in. “You’re talking right now.”

He persists. “Specifically, I want to talk about why you were Occluding when Dumbledore was giving his speech about how the only way to defeat You-Know-Who is to take away his following.”

Snape raises his eyebrows. “You tried to use Legilimency without my knowledge or consent? Doesn’t that break the Gryffindor moral code?”

“The Gryffindor moral code is,  _ ‘If someone isn’t cooperating, it’s perfectly acceptable to kidnap them,’ _ so I really wouldn’t be bringing that up right now if I were you.”

“We’re on the same side, Black, so it doesn’t really make sense for you to threaten me.”

Regulus folds his arms. “Yeah, see, I don’t actually know that right now, because I don’t know why you were Occluding.”

Snape sighs. “There’s another way to defeat the Dark Lord.”

“And you told Dumbledore about it, but he doesn’t want to tell the rest of us because it’s a secret from just about anyone,” Regulus guesses.

“I’m not supposed to know. Something just seemed off, so I looked into it, and...” Snape sighs. “Well, I suppose you’re intelligent enough to know how to keep a secret, and you’re clearly not going to let me leave unless I tell you. The Dark Lord has created Horcruxes.”

Regulus knows what those are, of course; he grew up in a family all too familiar with the Dark Arts. “More than one?”

“Most likely several. He cares more about immortality than preserving his soul.”

“Well, if you never die, the state of your soul doesn’t really matter, does it?”

“Fair point,” Snape concedes. “I know the location of one, and I’ve told Dumbledore what I know. Not even the Dark Lord’s highest-ranking Death Eaters know about the Horcruxes. That’s why we absolutely need to keep this quiet. After all, if Peter was in the Order for so long, who knows how many more spies we might have?”

“Presumably,  _ you _ would.”

“Unless, of course, they were secret informants reporting directly and privately to the Dark Lord. So, you see, I really don’t have anything to go on. The fact that I haven’t seen any of the other Order members at Death Eater meetings doesn’t necessarily mean anything at all.”

“I can look in my parents’ library,” Regulus says.

“I don’t think that’ll help in finding other possible spies in the Order.”

“No, I mean to find how to destroy the Horcruxes. Unless you’ve figured out how to do that already?” Snape shakes his head, so Regulus continues. “I can look, then, I know all of their books were included in my inheritance —”

“Your parents are dead?”

“My mother died a couple of weeks ago. Not a tragedy. I haven’t seen her since I still had the Trace on me. And my father’s been dead for years.”

Snape nods slowly. “Well, if we find anything else, I’ll let you know.”

Then he Apparates away and Regulus can’t shake the odd feeling that they’ve somehow become... not friends, but sort of friends.

 

The next day, Regulus receives an owl from Snape. It says, in neat, efficient writing, that Dumbledore wants to meet with both of them in his office at Hogwarts at half past four.

When the time rolls around, Regulus makes his excuses and departs, choosing to Floo directly to the Headmaster’s office rather than Apparating. He doesn’t want to take the risk that it might be raining, and he can’t Apparate into or out of Hogwarts, obviously. That was something tested quite frequently by the other Gryffindors during his time there.

He arrives in the fireplace, but Regulus forgets that Dumbledore has an irritatingly low fireplace and hits his head as he steps out, promptly bracing himself against the wall and waiting for the spots in his vision to fade before taking another step. Dumbledore’s office is frequently messy, and Regulus  _ really _ doesn’t want to risk tripping over anything in front of Snape. He would never let it go. Then again, he’s already hit his head on something, so there’s not much else Regulus can do to appear more incompetent.

Snape and Dumbledore are already there — obviously, as it’s Dumbledore’s office and Snape is the substitute Potions teacher. Professor Slughorn is frequently sick in the spring, as he has horrible allergies to pollen, which makes Regulus wonder why he decided to teach Potions, even if it  _ is  _ a better choice than Herbology or Care of Magical Creatures, both of which are taught mostly outside.

“Ah, there you are, Regulus!” Dumbledore says pleasantly. “How’s everything at the Ministry?”

“Fine, thanks,” Regulus replies, brushing a bit of soot off of the hem of his trousers. “What’s this about?”

“Sit down,” Dumbledore says, gesturing to the empty seat next to Snape’s on the other side of the headmaster’s desk, on which there is a tea service. “Severus has told me that he told you about the Horcruxes?”

It’s not really a question, and Regulus can tell that Dumbledore has more to say, so he doesn’t reply.

“I had not realized that Voldemort created Horcruxes, but in hindsight it seems obvious. He aims to become immortal, and if one knows enough about the Dark Arts, one knows that Horcruxes are a viable, if distasteful, method to prolonging one’s life until one is killed. Of course, there are simpler options, but the life offered by drinking unicorn blood would not, I believe, be satisfactory to him, and finding or creating a Philosopher’s Stone is exceptionally difficult, even for a wizard of his caliber.”

“So, Horcruxes,” Regulus sums up.

Dumbledore nods. “I’ve tried to retrieve the one that Severus told me about —”

“You didn’t tell me about that,” Snape interrupts.

“I am now.” That’s a clear order to be quiet, one that Snape obeys, though he doesn’t look all that happy about it. “The Horcrux is in a cave in a cliff by the sea. The first obstacle I encountered was not actually the cliff, since I Apparated to a ledge by the cave. I did have to swim into the cave, but that is more of a natural defense than one of Voldemort’s, I think. A blood sacrifice to open the entry to the actual cave — a shallow cut was sufficient, all that was required was a small amount — and I could enter the cave.

“It was mostly filled with a lake, except for a narrow walkway that extended about a quarter of the way round, and there was a boat that could be found at the end of that walkway. Which I did. The lake was full of Inferi, by the way, which I noticed as I was crossing to a small island in the middle of it. There was a basin full of potion there, with a barrier preventing me from reaching in — the only way I could get past the barrier was to carry a goblet. I could not Vanish or transport the potion, either, so it was clear that the only option was to drink it.

“That was where I stopped. The potion would not be anything innocuous, and the Inferi were in the lake for a purpose. I have no doubt that the Horcrux is at the bottom of that basin, but until we know what that potion is, and what the Inferi are there for, I do not believe it would be wise to try and obtain the Horcrux.”

“I can go see if I can find any more information,” Regulus offers. “You probably have work to do, but I have the rest of the day off and I know some things about magical theory, especially pertaining to the Dark Arts. I can go now to look as long as somebody tells me where it is so I can Apparate there, and then, once I’ve got a better idea of the defenses, look through some Dark Arts books that I’ve recently found myself in possession of.”

“Ah, an excellent idea,” Dumbledore says. “As long as you don’t try to retrieve the Horcrux while you are there, I see no reason why we can’t try that. I do have a school to run, as you say, but Severus has no other work today. He can take you.”

 

“I want to make it clear that I will not assist you in doing anything foolhardy and Gryffindor,” Snape says as they walk towards Hogsmeade to find a place to Apparate.

“I don’t plan to do anything of the sort.”

“You say that now. That cave is the perfect place for people to suddenly decide to commit foolish acts of bravery.”

It’s only a few minutes before Regulus finds out what he means.

 

The cliff is forbidding by itself, dark and gloomy, with sharp rocks jutting up out of the waves reaching up the cliffside.

Snape points to a hole in the wall of rock, not exactly gaping, but definitely large enough to be noticeable. “According to Dumbledore, it opens up in there, as a sort of foyer. Then you have to find the door and open it with the blood sacrifice and then you’re in the cavern with the lake. And remember, you said you wouldn’t do anything needlessly stupid.”

“What, you thought I would just change my mind once I saw the cliff? This is the most discouraging place I could possibly think of.”

Snape surveys him disdainfully. “I don’t know, you could see the cliff and decide it was too dangerous to be sensible and fling yourself off in a desperate attempt to get the Horcrux by self-sacrifice. Isn’t that a thing Gryffindors do?”

“Is it a thing  _ Lily _ would do?”

Snape’s silent, so Regulus takes that as proof that he’s won. “I’ve seen enough. I can ask Dumbledore for the rest, he’s got a Pensieve. Let’s go.”


	5. Chapter 5

Regulus tells Sirius that he’s going somewhere else for the night and he’ll send word if he’s not going to be back tomorrow, then packs pajamas and a change of clothes and goes to Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place.

The funeral for their mother was last week. Regulus paid for it. Neither of them attended.

The books will be on the second floor, in the study and the library. That’s where his old bedroom is too. He might sleep there tonight. He might not. His room doesn’t hold many good memories for him, but then, it doesn’t hold many bad ones either. The bed was comfortable, at least.

The books are just as grim as he remembered, and fully illustrated. Regulus sorts through them as quickly as he can, not wanting to spend longer than absolutely necessary looking through them. He ignores the ones on curses, of which there are many — he’s looking for a potion, which helps quite a bit, as most of the books are about Dark curses.

Once he’s done looking through them all, he carries a stack of books to the desk in the study and starts reading. When he’s actually cracked a book, the stack seems much bigger than it did before, and despite their gruesome nature, it isn’t long before he finds himself yawning.

Regulus rolls his eyes at himself. He pulled later nights than this routinely when he was still at Hogwarts.

That doesn’t make wading through the archaic language used in most of the books any less boring, though.

He sighs and adds another book to the ever-increasing stack of non-useful ones.

 

Some time later, Regulus wakes up with his face pressed into a book, sitting slumped over his desk. The candles have burned out, and he feels stiff, so he guesses he’s been asleep for a while. He hasn’t found anything. Whatever’s in that basin Dumbledore mentioned, it was probably created exactly for this purpose, because if he can’t find it then it’s probably never been written down.

That won’t help him when he goes to retrieve the Horcrux, though.

It’s a decision he made at some point last night, when he was too tired to be anything but brutally honest with himself. Snape isn’t going to lift a finger on the Horcruxes, and besides, he’s busy being a Death Eater and an Order member at the same time. Nothing can happen to Dumbledore — he’s the leader of the Order of the Phoenix. They’d be lost without him. Of the three people who know about the Horcruxes, besides Voldemort, of course, Regulus is the only one both willing and able to do something.

Dumbledore’s made it quite clear that he’ll need a second person if he does go, someone to defend — the trip is his idea, so it’s only fair that Regulus be the one to drink the potion and suffer whatever effects it might have — and Regulus doesn’t want to risk his brother or his friends. He can’t just bring anyone, though — it needs to be someone he absolutely, completely trusts. Someone who won’t tell a soul what Regulus is going off to do. The Horcruxes are a secret for now, and Dumbledore has his reasons for keeping them that way. Regulus doesn’t pretend to have a game plan nearly as elaborate and thought-out as Dumbledore. His plan is simple: get in, get the Horcrux, get out, look for the other Horcruxes. Then kill Voldemort. It’s simple enough.

Effective too, he hopes.

So who can he take?

There’s a knock on the door, and Kreacher walks in. “It’s nearly noon. Master Regulus needs to owl that nasty little — Sirius to tell him if you’ll be back there tonight.”

And just like that, everything falls into place. “Yes, I’ll owl him, and then we have an errand to go on.”

 

Regulus decides to keep his letter to Sirius brief and fairly untruthful. There’s no need for his brother to know about this whole thing just yet. Especially because if Sirius knew that Regulus had even a somewhat cordial relationship with Severus Snape, he might faint.

 

_ Dear Sirius, _

 

_ I don’t think I’m going to be home tonight, either. Kreacher and I are still trying to sort everything in the house, and I need to look through all the books to try and find one that Dumbledore wanted to borrow. Frankly, I hope it’s one of the ones on warding or ancient blood magic, because those ones tend not to have as... detailed pictures. _

_ That being said, if Kreacher turns up without me, be sure to ask him where I am, because I’m not entirely sure that I slept last night and am liable to fall asleep somewhere buried deep in mountains of Dark objects and never be found. _

_ Hopefully I’ll have this finished by tomorrow, though, so I’ll see you then if all goes well. _

 

_ Regulus _

 

He sends the letter off with their mother’s old owl, who probably won’t die mid flight. He hopes.

“Kreacher, it’s time to go.”

Kreacher reappears from wherever he was, and Regulus takes the opportunity to tell Kreacher what he expects him to do on their errand. He still hasn’t told Kreacher what it is that they’re doing.

“When we get to where we’re going, there’ll be a basin with a potion in it, and I need to drink all of it. You need to help me. I don’t know if the potion is going to be harmful, but even if it is, I need to drink all of it, or at least enough that we can get the item out. There’ll be an item at the bottom of the basin, that’s what we need. But we can only get to it by drinking the potion first.

“Then, I’m not really sure what happens. We might get attacked by Inferi, I don’t know. There are definitely Inferi there, I just don’t know what they do. But if it looks like we’re in trouble and you can’t get us both out, or if I’m badly hurt, then go get help. Try to find Dumbledore first, but if you can’t find him quickly, then go get Sirius, or even Severus Snape if you can’t find Sirius quickly either. The important thing is that you come back here fast with help from somebody who I can trust. Do you promise to do that?”

Kreacher nods. 

“Good, let’s go. I’ll Apparate us, since I know where we’re going.”

He takes Kreacher’s arm, and it’s only a few moments before they’re back on that ledge at the foot of the cliff, by the entrance to the cave.

 

The air is bitingly cold, as fits midday in December. Regulus notices Kreacher shiver a bit and wishes he’d had the foresight to bring something warmer for the house-elf to cover himself with. He can’t afford to give Kreacher clothes now; pathetic as it sounds, he needs Kreacher to remain bound to him until after this whole escapade is over. Otherwise, things might not go according to plan, and Regulus has never liked improvising. At least he didn’t have the foresight to bring a jacket for himself, either, so they’re suffering equally.

Regulus casts a Warming Charm on both of them before he says anything. 

“We need to get in there.” He points to the hole in the side of the cliff that Snape had shown to him hardly a day earlier.

“Kreacher can Apparate us,” Kreacher says. “More accurate than wizard Apparating, anyway.”

“That’s true. Okay, let’s go.”

What follows is a quick series of Apparations, to the entrance to the cave, and then through a long tunnel, with Kreacher pausing just long enough to see his next destination before they’re off again. It’s better than swimming, but still, by the time that they reach the cave Dumbledore said would be there, Regulus’s feet are soaked, freezing, and almost numb from all the times they’ve dipped into the cold seawater.

He dries them off and casts another Warming Charm, but the sudden return of feeling to his feet causes pins and needles so bad that Regulus stumbles and scrapes his elbow on a rock wall.  _ Again. _ He should have been able to get over this constant tripping over everything when he stopped growing. God knows Sirius did. And yet, Regulus is still unreasonably clumsy for someone raised by an upper-class wizarding family. He doesn’t even need an obstacle to trip over; Regulus is quite accomplished at losing his balance for no reason at all.

Now is quite possibly the worst time he can think of to have that happen.

But in this case, it turns out to be a blessing. An arch appears in the rock, glowing white, and the solid rock within the light simply vanishes, leaving a simple arched doorway. The glow fades, and Regulus sees spots as his vision adjusts to the darkness.

_ “Lumos.” _ His wand lights. “Kreacher, I don’t know exactly how to go from here, so we’ll need to be very careful.”

“Master Regulus, why are we doing this?”

Regulus takes a step through the doorway and is greeted by a narrow ridge of rock, just wide enough for one person to walk on, surrounding (or at least he assumes it surrounds) an enormous lake, the likes of which seem comparable only to the ocean they’ve just left outside. The other shore of the lake vanishes into the darkness, as does the ceiling of the cavern, which is incredibly high, like they’re standing in a room made by carving out the entire inside of the cliff.

“We’re doing this because it needs to be done and we’re the only ones who will do it.”

Despite the situation, Regulus rather likes the drama of his phrasing.

They edge along the path, which is slippery in and of itself, despite the lack of constant sea spray here. Regulus is on every alert. Dumbledore really wasn’t very specific about what they would face in the cavern, and for the first time he speculates that Snape may have been right about not doing something foolish.

He shoves that thought down, of course. They’ve made it this far. He’s sacrificed his blood. He’s given Kreacher instructions on what to do should anything go wrong, and Dumbledore  _ did _ pave a lot of the path for him by going to the cavern first and then explaining what he’d done.

Really, Regulus can’t ask for a simpler task. He supposes he’s just being made uncomfortable by all the stillness. In his experience, stillness usually forecasts a storm far more devastating than the usual chaos. Regulus would rather hear nothing but chatter and noise than he would hear nothing at all.

And besides, he  _ volunteered _ for this (though nobody exactly knows about it), so he’d look rather foolish if he backed out now, when they were already in the cave.

They continue taking small, careful steps in silence until Regulus reaches a spot where something feels different. He warns Kreacher that he’s going to stop, since they can barely see each other in the darkness, and they come to a halt.

_ “Lumos Maxima,” _ Regulus says, so he can look for the end of the pathway and see if Dumbledore was right about it being a quarter of the way around, but the large starburst of light lasts for only a second before being stifled by the darkness.

His wand goes out, too.

_ “Lumos.” _ It stays lit now. Maybe the cave will only allow a small amount of light. It seems like the sort of foreboding measure that someone like Voldemort would take when it came to protecting a piece of their soul.

The whole cavern feels dark, but this part feels dark in a very specific way, the same sort of way that the skeletons in the cabinet in Regulus’s parents’ house felt dark and the same way that most of Knockturn Alley does as well. This part feels like dark magic, and Regulus knows that this is the section of bank that Dumbledore meant.

So what’s different about it? He feels the rock wall behind him, all the way from where it meets the ground to above his head. Nothing. Then as he moves his arms in front of him to check there, his forearm slides through something undeniably foreign. A strain of magic in the air.

Regulus makes a fist where he thinks it might be, in that place where his fingertips feel stiff and his palm tingles, and taps his hand with his wand. At this point he’s not entirely sure what he’s doing, but he supposes Dumbledore probably didn’t, either. One thing Regulus has decided about Voldemort is that he must love to experiment, because he seems to create most of the spells, potions, and devices that he uses on his own.

That also tells Regulus that Voldemort is not only ambitious, charismatic, and powerful, but also incredibly intelligent, and a good wizard as well.

No wonder they’re on the fast track to losing against him and the Death Eaters.

Regulus notices a bit of a green glow emerging from the depths of the water, slowly but steadily brightening. He doesn’t trust anything that comes out of this lake. “Kreacher, be ready, just in case this is dangerous,” he hisses, and feels, rather than sees, Kreacher nod at his side.

As the glow comes closer to the surface, Regulus sees that it’s long and snakelike, and prepares to attack — Voldemort is rumored to be a Parseltongue, and has a pet snake, in any case — but as the green light emerges from the surface, it becomes obvious that it’s a chain. 

Regulus’s fist feels like it’s immobilized in that one part of the air, and he watches as the chain traces its way up, out of the water, somehow weaving through his closed fist, appearing ghostly and transparent but feeling as solid and real as if it’d been there all along.

It’s followed by a small boat, without oars or sail, of the same green glow, but the boat doesn’t rise up out of the water. It simply waits there.

“Do you think this is safe?” Regulus asks in a hushed whisper.

“Kreacher thinks so, Master Regulus, but Kreacher will go first.” Kreacher steps forward and gets into the boat. Nothing happens. “Kreacher thinks it is safe, but Master Regulus will need to let go of the chain in order to get in.”

Regulus releases his grip, which has gotten so tight that his nails have left crescent-shaped marks in his palm, and flexes his hand to stretch it out a bit, getting into the boat as he does so. “Be on your guard. There are Inferi in the water, but they’re inactive right now. I’m not sure what it takes to make them active. We’ll need to be careful.”

The boat starts moving almost before he’s done speaking, and Regulus holds on as tightly as he can, cursing his legs. They always get shaky when he’s under stress, and right now they’re trembling like they never have.

Thankfully, the boat doesn’t rock, which might have sent Regulus over the edge. It moves almost like a broomstick does, which offers some measure of comfort, as he’s good on a broomstick, but his Quidditch career was spent doing rather more death-defying maneuvers than he’d like to try in the little green boat. The boat travels smoothly and gracefully, in a direct path, like his old broomstick, although the boat moves much more slowly and with no turns, just going directly towards the center of the lake, where Regulus can see a green glow similar to that of the boat and the chain.

That must be where the basin is, and the Horcrux. And they’re riding over the Inferi right now, in a boat that looks less stable the longer Regulus looks at it.

He focuses his attention on the glow at the center of the lake.

The ride in the boat is the longest ten minutes Regulus has ever experienced, but finally the boat bumps into a small stone island and stops.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the mild cliffhanger, but I really didn't have a better place to end it. Next chapter will be up tomorrow, so it's not that bad.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter where there's a brief mention of child abuse. It's very minimal and doesn't go into detail, but there'll be a warning in the text and a note when it's ended so if you want to, you can skip that part.

Kreacher gets off the boat first, avoiding the water, and Regulus does the same. There’s a basin in the center of the island, on top of a pedestal, just like Dumbledore had said there would be. The green glow is coming from inside of it.

The two of them carefully approach the basin. Regulus extinguishes his wand; the basin glows so brightly that there’s no need for it anymore.

The potion inside the basin glows green.

Regulus tries to poke at it with the tip of his wand, but an invisible barrier stops him.

So far, Dumbledore has been right on every count, not that Regulus expected him to lie. However, now there’s one thing left on the checklist of things that Dumbledore told him, and that’s to see if the only way to get rid of the potion is to drink it.

And, of course, there’s the matter of the Inferi, but Dumbledore doesn’t know what will make them attack and Regulus doesn’t _want_ to. If he’s going to take the Horcrux, though, undoubtedly at some point they’ll rise out of the lake. It’s the only possible explanation for their presence, and though Regulus wasn’t exactly peering into the water looking for corpses on their way over, he has no doubt that they’re there, or something worse.

He conjures a rather plain goblet — Transfiguration always was one of his best subjects, but Regulus can’t find it in him to conjure something complex right now. As it is, he nearly makes a mistake on the wand motions, but catches himself just in time.

“You remember what I told you?” Regulus asks, because it’s the last possible thing that can delay him drinking the potion.

“Yes, Master Regulus.”

Regulus takes a deep breath, what might possibly be his last one that is alive, and sane, and in control of himself.

He has no idea what the potion will do.

He needs to drink it.

Regulus plunges the goblet into the basin. It passes through the barrier like there’s nothing there, and he brings it back up full of the glowing green potion.

He tries to pour it out onto the rock. The potion falls out of the goblet, but as soon as it touches the rock, it vanishes and reappears in the basin.

There’s nothing to do but drink it, then.

“Remember, Kreacher, the most important part of this is to get the Horcrux, and _then_ come back for me, if that’s what you have to do.”

Kreacher nods tensely, and with nothing else to say or do, Regulus fills the goblet again and gulps it down.

The first thing he feels is _cold._ So cold that he could be frozen solid, cold enough that breathing physically hurts because the air is too hot, and it scalds him as he breathes even though he needs to do it to live.

But he needs to keep drinking, so he squeezes his eyes shut and drinks another gobletful, and this time it _burns,_ it burns him and he can feel it moving through his throat, and he objectively knows that it’s anatomically impossible for the potion to pass through his heart but he swears it does and it burns his chest apart from the inside.

But oddly enough, his legs aren’t shaking anymore. Regulus should be under more stress than he’s ever been in his life, but he isn’t. There’s just him, Kreacher, the goblet, the potion, and the Horcrux. Nothing matters except getting to the Horcrux, and so there’s nothing for him to be stressed about. He has one goal, and he’s working towards it now.

All that matters is the next swallow.

Regulus has to clutch the basin to stay upright, but he drinks more and more of the potion, three gobletfuls, four, five, seeing stars even though his eyes are closed. His head pounds and he can hear his own heartbeat, frantic and far too fast. It’s difficult to breathe. It feels like how people always describe asthma attacks, but so much worse.

Eventually, his vision disappears entirely and the world goes pitch black, but he still hears things, just not what he thinks he should hear. He hears his mother and father shouting at each other and his own voice as a child asking, “Will they ever stop?”

“I’ll make it stop,” child Sirius’s voice answers determinedly. “I _will.”_ And he repeats it, over and over, until he doesn’t sound like Sirius anymore, he sounds like Kreacher, saying, “If Master Regulus drinks this, it will stop,” and Kreacher’s voice shakes but Regulus can’t believe his luck, Kreacher knows what to do, of course he does, and he drinks but then pain explodes through his chest and he feels, rather than hears, a scream tear itself from his throat.

**(A/N: if you want to skip the implied child abuse then just scroll down until you see the next author's note)**

And then he hears his mother shouting again, but it’s not his father she’s mad at, it’s _him,_ it’s Regulus, and she’s calling him filthy and a blood traitor and she says that she’s ashamed to have given birth to not one but _two_ dirty, disgusting, Mudblood-sympathizing _Gryffindors,_ and her tirade goes on and on and on and on and he hears himself whimper again, “Make it stop!”

And again Kreacher is there, and this time Kreacher _can_ make it stop, he can, as long as Regulus just drinks, so Regulus drinks, but he feels like he’s being ripped in two and then _Sirius’s_ voice joins the fray, older, sixteen years old, yelling like Regulus had never heard him before that moment, _that_ was when he knew that his brother was someone who could absolutely be feared.

And Mother is yelling and Sirius is shouting and Regulus is _screaming_ , screaming so much he knows all anyone can hear by now is a hoarse gasp but he can’t make it stop, he _needs_ to scream, he needs to make them _stop fighting—_

Kreacher is there, Kreacher, the loyal house-elf, he’s always liked Kreacher and here Kreacher is telling him that if he just _drinks_ Sirius and Mother will stop fighting and everything will be fine and Regulus drinks and feels pain like he’s never felt before, fireworks go off in his head and he can feel himself being pulled apart at the limbs and Mother yells, _“Crucio!”_

Regulus gasps, “No — no, _make it stop!”_

“If Master Regulus just drinks a little more it will stop forever,” Kreacher says, and Regulus _has_ to drink because he needs it to just _stop,_ and then he hears _Sirius_ scream in heart-wrenching agony and Regulus feels his heart burst in two and he crumples, listening to Sirius scream as he’s being tortured and whimpering to himself, like the five-year-old boy he was once, that _if only everything could just stop..._

“If Master Regulus drinks now, everything will be over,” Kreacher says.

Everything being over is _exactly_ what Regulus wants, he wants to stop hearing Sirius scream in pain and he wants to stop feeling torn apart and he drinks.

Sirius’s scream goes on longer and longer and longer until it finally goes on so long it can’t continue and fades and ends and Regulus has never felt so grateful in his life, Kreacher told the truth, he made it stop, but he still sees stars and the inside of his throat feels scalded and he feels like he’s burning all over, burning slowly to death.

**(A/N: it's over now)**

The only thing to do is find water, but Regulus can’t stand, can’t look around either — his eyelids feel glued shut — and all he can do is lie there and wait for something to happen — water, or opening his eyes, or Kreacher telling him how to make everything _stop._

But he can’t hear Kreacher, and he asks for him, but no one answers.

_Water, water._ Regulus isn’t sure he can wait for his eyes to open to look for water, as time goes on the burning gets worse and his throat is so dry that he can almost feel it cracking into pieces and his head still throbs, worse than any headache he ever got from reading cramped text in the dark.

But he can’t move much either. Regulus tries to move his legs but he can’t — he remembers that there’s water nearby, there has to be because they went on a boat to get here, him and Kreacher, but the water is bad, but he doesn’t care because anything is better than continuing to lie here and feel himself burn, and burn, and burn.

Regulus musters all of his strength and manages to roll over, and he hears a little splash and his toe feels wet, _he’s found water,_ but it’s all the way by his foot and he can’t move over there, but now there are more splashing sounds, the sounds of ripples being created and destroyed, and little waves that weren’t there before lap against the shore of the little island in the middle of the lake, because now he remembers, they were in a lake, under a cliff, and it was dark, so dark — something pulls at his ankle, it feels almost like a hand — but then he hears the sound of a _crack_ and Kreacher’s voice calling to him and someone who sounds like Sirius shouting and Regulus screws up his eyes even more because it sounds like the shouting of sixteen-year-old Sirius, and then there’s light so bright that Regulus feels like his eyes are being boiled even though they’re closed so tightly he’s not sure he’ll ever be able to open them again, and the world turns hot for a moment, even though he was already burning, and then he feels like he’s being squeezed through a tube and the world goes dark.

 

Regulus is tired, very tired. He feels the exhaustion all the way to his bones. But he doesn’t hurt. He certainly doesn’t feel anything like the screaming, burning pain he remembers from the lake.

His eyes still seem to have glued themselves shut, though, or maybe he’s just too tired to properly open them.

The world can get along without him for a little longer, so Regulus immediately falls back asleep.

 

The second time Regulus wakes up, he notices that he’s in a bed, which must be why he feels so comfortable. He remembers falling unconscious on that rock in the lake, but he’s not sure how he got here. He remembers hearing Kreacher, and Sirius, but then he heard both of them so many times that night that he’s not sure what really happened and what was just memories, or the potion, or both.

“How is he?” a hushed voice whispers, one that sounds almost like James, and Regulus hears it even though he thought he might be deafened by all the screaming he heard at the lake.

“According to every source, normal,” another one replies at regular volume, and that sounds like Remus. “This would be the earliest we could expect him to wake up, any earlier would be a medical miracle but anytime in the next week would be perfectly normal. If he doesn’t wake up after a week from today, we should probably go about getting him transferred to St. Mungo’s. They have people over there who specialize in things like this, or at least I hope they do.”

“Shouldn’t you know that by now?” the first voice asks.

“I’m only in training right now,” the second voice reminds them. “Not a full-fledged Healer yet. So no, I don’t know.”

Regulus tries to say that he thinks St. Mungo’s has people who specialize in everything, but all that comes out is a weak _“eeeev’rything.”_

“Did he say something?” the voice that sounds like James asks excitedly.

“I think so,” the Remus voice replies, just as eagerly. “Regulus? Regulus, can you hear me?”

“Yyyes.” Regulus still feels as weak as a newborn, but he forces his eyes open.

James and Remus are standing over his bed, with identical looks of concern on their faces that melt away once he opens his eyes.

James lets out a gleeful whoop and runs out the door. “Lily? Lily, Reg’s awake!”

“Who gave him permission to call me that?” Regulus mumbles.

“It just kind of happened,” Remus says, then he walks over to the other side of Regulus’s bed and pokes at somebody Regulus can’t see, as doing that would require him to turn his head and he really does not feel up to that at the present moment. “Sirius! Wake up!”

There’s a grumbling noise that sounds exactly like Sirius does in the early morning, and then Sirius is awake and getting out of the chair he’s been sleeping in and stretching and Remus and James and Lily are there too and so is Kreacher and somehow Harry’s found his way into the room as well, and there are tears and people hug Regulus (but gently, as he’s still annoyingly weak), and Kreacher professes his guilt, to which Regulus replies that he was only doing what Regulus asked him to, and Regulus puts the memories of Sirius screaming and parents shouting out of his mind.


	7. Chapter 7

It’s a few more days before Regulus is strong enough to sit up without help, and that’s when he insists that they catch him up on what happened when he was unconscious.

“Well, the good news is that Harry learned to say your name!” James says proudly.

“Let me guess, you taught him,” Regulus replies.

“Yup! Want to see?” He scoops up Harry from the floor and points at Regulus. “Harry, what’s his name?”

“Uncle Reggie!” Harry declares.

“Good job!” James says as Regulus sighs.

Lily catches his expression and says, “Well, Remus and Sirius are Moony and Paddy to him respectively, so it only made sense.”

“I shudder to think of what else your husband has been teaching that poor boy.”

“Me too, sometimes.” Regulus turns to Remus. “So, how long do you think until I can go back to work?”

Sirius furrows his brow. “Why do you want to go back to work? If I were you, I’d milk it as long as possible.”

“I need to make sure Rodolphus Lestrange can’t meet with Bagnold,” Regulus says curtly. “I didn’t tell her about him trying to Imperius her. I’ve just been continually rescheduling his appointments further into the future. If I told her he was trying to Imperius her I’d have to explain about Alice, and then the news would get out that we know about them Imperiusing people, and we’d lose an advantage.”

“You really like keeping all your cards to your chest, don’t you,” Sirius says. “Like when you went off to a cave in the  _ middle of nowhere _ with only Kreacher to make sure you made it out alive, without telling anyone else you were going, nearly killing yourself to get a piece of jewelry.”

Regulus sits bolt upright. “Where is it?”

“What is it?” James counters. He must have been around when Sirius brought Regulus here, then.

“It’s one of You-Know-Who’s Horcruxes.”

There’s pin-drop silence, then Remus says, “Come on, Harry, let’s go downstairs and I’ll tell you a story, alright?”

“Okay!” Harry says cheerfully, and the two of them go downstairs together.

“What’s a Horcrux?” Lily asks, and the question doesn’t surprise Regulus. Sirius knows because he grew up in the same household that Regulus did, and James, well, he’s a pureblood, and old wizarding families tend to know about old magic, whether it’s dark or not. Remus probably came across the term when he was doing all that extra credit work in his seventh year; the rest of them hardly saw him, he spent so much time in the Restricted section.

But Lily’s a Muggleborn, and not one who’s had much more than a practical interest in the Dark Arts, so it makes sense that she doesn’t know. Most members of the wizarding world probably don’t.

“It’s something you can create to achieve relative immortality,” Regulus explains. “You find an object and split your soul, and then there’s a spell you can perform to place half of your soul into the object. As long as your Horcrux isn’t destroyed, you can’t die, because some part of your soul is hidden away safely. It only makes sense that it’s something You-Know-Who would do.”

“So that’s why he can’t be killed,” James murmurs. “But we’ve got him now, right?”

“Well, no.” 

“What do you mean? We can destroy the Horcrux now, and then kill him, and that’ll be that.”

“There’s more than one, isn’t there?” Lily asks.

“Yeah.”

“How do you know all this?” Sirius asks. 

Regulus decides, once again, to go with a half-truth, not mentioning Snape at all. “Dumbledore. He told me because he wanted me to look through our parents’ library, now that I’ve inherited it, and see if there’s anything about how to destroy them. He says he has a few ideas but they’re all quite inconvenient and he wants to find one that will cause minimal destruction. So he told me about this one. It’s the only one he knows about, I think, but we both think there are more.”

“Wait, how do you split your soul?” Lily questions.

“You kill someone,” the three of them reply in unison.

Lily pales. “But You-Know-Who’s killed dozens of people, at least. He could have enough Horcruxes that we’ll never find them all.”

“He probably only has a few,” Regulus says. “Splitting your soul is dangerous even if you only do it once. Being You-Know-Who, he’ll want the extra security, but the more times you create a Horcrux, the more dangerous it is for you to do so. Every time you create one, what’s left of your soul splits in two, you see? So the first Horcrux he ever made would have half of his soul, the second one a quarter, and so on. Nobody knows quite what the effect would be if you continued making more, but the fragments of soul would be infinitesimally small, and the amount in you would continually be halved. And it’s archaic, and dangerous, and he may be greedy but he’s not stupid.”

“So that locket is one of them,” Sirius confirms. Regulus nods. “Should we send it to Dumbledore?”

“Better to just take it to him directly,” Regulus replies. “We  _ cannot _ afford for it to get lost, not when it was so dangerous to retrieve it the first time. Can you do that immediately, since you probably know where it is? And tell Dumbledore I didn’t find any other ways to destroy them.”

Sirius nods and turns to leave the room. James and Lily follow, leaving Regulus alone with Kreacher, who turns to leave too, but Regulus says, “Kreacher, wait.”

The house-elf turns around and wrings his hands, refusing to meet Regulus’s eyes. Regulus knows he must feel guilty that Regulus went through such an ordeal at the lake, but Kreacher needs to understand why Regulus asked him to do it.

“Thank you for saving my life.”

Kreacher raises his head and opens his mouth as if to make eye contact, but Regulus continues without letting him say anything. He needs to make his point. “You did exactly what I asked and brought help at precisely the right time. I wouldn’t have been able to get the Horcrux without your help. Anyone else would have refused, once they saw what the potion did, and we’d never be able to destroy the Horcrux and defeat You-Know-Who, but you didn’t do that. So I want to thank you.”

Kreacher looks a little teary. “Master Regulus is too kind to Kreacher.”

“No, I’m not,” Regulus corrects. “If anything, I’m not doing a good enough job of expressing how grateful I am. I can say with absolute certainty that if you had not done exactly what you did at the lake, we would never be able to defeat You-Know-Who.”

Now Kreacher definitely looks teary-eyed. “Thank you, Master Regulus.”

Regulus smiles.

 

It’s only an hour or so later that Sirius returns, looking a little scorched but otherwise no more worse for wear. “I never want to see Fiendfyre again in my life.”

“Why, what happened?”

“Took the locket to Dumbledore like you said and told him what happened. He hardly even reacted, just said ‘I thought Regulus might do something like this,’ told me to pass on his thanks, and cast Fiendfyre on the locket. It’s safe to say the Horcrux is destroyed now, but not without sacrificing the ends of my hair for it.”

“That’s good,” Regulus says.

“Well, personally I rather  _ liked _ the ends of my hair, but I see what you’re saying.”

 

It’s another week before Regulus feels well enough to go back to work. He explains to every person who asks that he came down with pneumonia after spending a bit too much time standing in the rain without a jacket. They buy it, and he still looks tired and wan enough to support his story.

The first thing Regulus does when he gets to his desk is check the Minister’s schedule. Undoubtedly one of the other members of the support staff will have taken over as Bagnold’s assistant while he was recovering, but none of them would know to prevent Lestrange from meeting with the Minister at all costs.

He doesn’t find a single appointment with Lestrange in the calendar for the next few weeks, and a bad feeling rises in Regulus’s gut. He flips back to the pages of the schedule that correspond to when he was out, and sure enough, Lestrange has already had his appointment.

He’s been away long enough that Lestrange could have Imperiused multiple high-ranking members of the Ministry, and at this point Regulus doesn’t want to take the tally of everyone who’s been affected, but he needs to know. He writes out memos for some of the un-Imperiused Order members who work at the Ministry (that is, the ones who are entry-level employees and aren’t important enough to be Imperiused), asking them to keep an eye out for anyone else who’s been affected or who’s had a meeting with Rodolphus Lestrange recently.

At the next meeting of the Wizengamot, he’ll have to look and see how many of them have already been cursed. His job at those meetings is only to write down the minutes, but he can still look over those later for anyone acting oddly.

Regulus owls Lily, telling her to schedule another meeting of the Order for that night.

 

“The Dark Lord is looking for a new weapon,” Snape says at that night’s meeting in Godric’s Hollow. “Specifically, one that currently resides in the Department of Mysteries.”

“Which one?” Pandora Lovegood asks. She works there, so it’s entirely possible that she’ll be able to keep it under her protection.

“He doesn’t know.” There’s a bit of sniggering at this, which Snape ignores. “All he knows is that there is a powerful force housed there, and that if he can harness it, he will become more powerful than ever. He plans to lead a raid into the Ministry at some point to find it.”

“He’s going to lead it himself?” Regulus asks.

“Yes, he deems it too important for him to delegate the task to anyone else. Besides, if he lets them go without him, it’s entirely possible in his mind that one of the Death Eaters will take the power for themselves and become greater than him.”

“Oh, wonderful.”

That sentiment seems to be shared by most of the Order, as the nodding around Regulus indicates.

“But wouldn’t internal unrest help us?” Remus points out. “If the Death Eaters are suspicious of each other, and You-Know-Who is suspicious of the Death Eaters, then their ability to work efficiently is rather sabotaged.”

“We could feed false information to Pettigrew,” Sirius offers. “How much do the Death Eaters rely on his information? Less now, since we’ve started taking measures to keep him out, but as long as he hasn’t been explicitly found out they’ll probably trust him. And if You-Know-Who got Pettigrew on his side in the first place, he knows that Pettigrew will always hide behind the most powerful person. If we can get Pettigrew to rely a little more on another member of the inner circle, that would be a good way to make You-Know-Who suspicious of that person.  _ And _ of Pettigrew.”

“Knowing You-Know-Who, he’d kill both of them, though,” Lily points out.

“So? They’re Death Eaters. Better they tear each other apart than we kill them.”

The room falls silent, except for a snort from Snape. “Now, I  _ know _ you aren’t referring to the moral repercussions of trying to murder someone.”

“Let’s not get into that,” Remus says swiftly. “Let’s just keep the meeting going.”

Kingsley Shacklebolt speaks next, and his announcement isn’t any less bleak than Snape’s was. “I had a meeting with Amelia Bones, assistant head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, yesterday.”

They all know what’s coming.

“Amelia’s been Imperiused?” Edgar Bones calls out, more out of disbelief than a need for confirmation. Regulus is similarly surprised. Amelia Bones is competent, and her position doesn’t require many meetings with people outside the Ministry, or with people in general. Barty Crouch Sr. handles that, as the actual head of the department.

“Definitely.”

Edgar slumps back into his chair. Regulus would do the same if his sibling was suddenly placed under the Imperius curse by a Death Eater.

“And it’s definitely Lestrange?” another person asks.

“Yes,” Regulus answers before Shacklebolt gets the chance. “Lestrange has also managed to Imperius the Minister for Magic.”

There’s quite a lot of muttering at that, before Dorcas Meadowes asks, “But what can we do?”

“Clearly they’ve managed to work out a variation on the Imperius curse that will allow someone to control another person from a distance away, even while sleeping,” Remus says. “I think the only way to stop it will be to incapacitate Lestrange completely.”

“You mean  _ murder _ him?” Elphias Doge cries.

“We can’t do that,” Sirius says sourly. He likes their relatives even less than Regulus does, possibly because the feeling is mutual. “Nobody knows where he lives or where he spends his time.” Regulus knows for a fact that Aunt Bellatrix hasn’t spoken to her husband for quite a while. If divorce wouldn’t completely ruin the alliance between the Lestrange and Black families, the couple would probably go through with it. “Unless he reveals himself, all we can do is hope that the people who are Imperiused manage to snap out of it. He’s gotten so many people by now that his concentration has to be weakening on at least a few of them.”

“That’s true,” Regulus says, feeling a bit lighter. “It takes an extremely strong will just to hold one person under the Imperius, and presumably that would get more and more difficult to do, the more people one has to control.”

“Like running a daycare,” James sums up, and that gets a laugh from a few people.

Dumbledore stands, as he usually does when he’s about to signal the end of the information- sharing period. “In light of this new information, I believe our highest priority is to protect the Ministry in case of an attack. The problem of Rodolphus Lestrange must solve itself eventually, so besides watching the actions of those under the Imperius, we can do little to speed its end. Those of you who work within the Ministry, be on your guard, and be prepared to evacuate people in case of a raid. The rest of us will be prepared to join in.”

There’s widespread agreement at that, and the Order disperses.

 

Regulus receives an owl that night.

 

_ Black —  _

 

_ Your little daycare won’t be a problem much longer. You’re welcome. _

 

It’s not signed, but the only person Regulus knows who both calls him by his surname and wouldn’t leave a signature is Snape, so frankly, the other man did a lousy job of hiding his identity.

Then again, Snape was probably more worried about the mail being intercepted than he was about Regulus knowing who it was from.

Regulus doesn’t know what Snape did to solve the Imperius problem (at least he’s assuming that’s what the ‘little daycare’ is), and he’s not quite sure he wants to, but eventually he’ll find out sooner or later. At least someone’s done something to fix it.

  
Regulus has found that he really does enjoy his status as assistant to the Minister. He sends out most of the memos, so it’s a simple matter to inform the security wizards that it has come to the Minister’s attention that some of the rooms in the Department of Mysteries have been tampered with, and to be extremely vigilant about guarding that part of the Ministry. Pandora Lovegood sends a similar message to the security staff at the same time, informing them of the same thing, to provide a facade of truthfulness to their story. It’s not much, but it makes him feel slightly better about the impending attack. 


	8. Chapter 8

One morning a few days later, Sirius slaps down the Obituary section of the  _ Daily Prophet _ in front of Regulus.

“I don’t want to read about more deaths,” Regulus says.

“Oh, I think you do,” his brother replies, pointing at a specific column.

Regulus reads it, then reads it again, then looks up at Sirius. “Rodolphus Lestrange is dead?”

“Poisoned, from the looks of it,” Sirius says. So now Regulus knows what Snape did to fix the Imperiused people, though he can’t say much for his letter-writing skills. “They can’t figure out what the poison is. I bet it was Snape. As much as I don’t like him, the man’s useful. Although I can’t say I will ever trust any edible item that he hands me ever again.”

“Did you ever?” Regulus asks.

“Nah. Anyway, that means Alice’ll be back to normal! Bagnold too, and probably Professor Hingle at Hogwarts as well, and so will Amelia! I think Edgar’s going to try and recruit her to the Order once we know for sure that she’s back to normal. She wouldn’t have been Imperiused if she wasn’t against You- Know-Who, after all.”

“That’s true. Okay, you were right. I did want to read about that. Thank you.”

Sirius just looks smug.

 

Regulus doesn’t say anything to Bagnold about the Imperius curse, or Rodolphus Lestrange, or anything. When she comments that the past few weeks have felt a little fuzzy, he scolds her for overworking so much that it’s affected her health and sends her home to rest, saying that the Ministry can muddle along without her for one afternoon.

Almost immediately after he’s sent the Minister home, he gets an owl from Edgar Bones, informing him that Amelia is fine and has joined the Order. That’s good news. Amelia Bones is a capable witch and extremely intelligent. When Crouch stops being Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, whether it’s to become Minister for Magic or to retire (and they’re equally likely), there’s no doubt that Amelia will be the one to replace him. She holds quite a bit of sway in the Ministry as well. Regulus can hardly think of a better new ally.

Fortunately, the rest of the day passes without incident. Regulus worried that once Rodolphus was dead, Voldemort would give up on subtly infiltrating the Ministry and just attack that very night, but so far nothing’s happened. On the one hand, he’s relieved that they have a bit more time to prepare, but on the other, all the waiting is making him anxious, and he knows he’s not the only one.

That’s probably Voldemort’s game, actually. The more jittery his opponents are, the more likely they are to make stupid mistakes.

 

The next day, Regulus is called to Dumbledore’s office again. Regulus suspects he’s found something else pertaining to Horcruxes, as there’s no other plausible reason that he would need to go to Dumbledore’s office, and he’s proved right when he Floos in, catching himself just in time so he doesn’t bump his head against the top of the fireplace, to see Snape handing Dumbledore a golden potion and scolding him for being so reckless.

Well, Dumbledore was a Gryffindor too. Maybe Snape should just get used to it, if he insists on being around them all the time.

Regulus stops short when he sees Dumbledore’s left hand, though. It’s withered, and almost looks like a mummy’s hand, without the wrappings. Clearly, it’s an effect from trying to retrieve another Horcrux.

A gold ring with a black stone set in it lies on the desk, presumably the object. Somehow, Regulus isn’t surprised at all to discover that Voldemort’s Horcruxes all seem to feature precious metals. Nothing else would be quite as fittingly grandiose.

Regulus slides into the empty chair and waits for Dumbledore to finish his potion and for Snape to stop sulking.

“Why do neither of you have an  _ ounce _ of sense in your heads?” Snape demands as soon as he registers Regulus. “Going after Horcruxes on your own? Black nearly died getting the locket! Headmaster,  _ you _ would have died if I hadn’t been prepared for you to do something like this! What part of ‘the Dark Lord has  _ dozens _ of defenses for his Horcruxes’ don’t you understand? First Black, now Dumbledore! Did you not see what happened to  _ him?” _ and there he jerks his thumb towards Regulus before continuing with his tirade.

Regulus and Dumbledore trade glances, recognizing that interrupting Snape would only infuriate him further, and let him finish his rant.

When Snape finally finishes, Dumbledore says, “As I am sure you have realized, Regulus, I have retrieved another one of Voldemort’s Horcruxes.” He nods towards the ring. “It belonged to Voldemort’s maternal grandfather, and had been passed down for generations through his family. I was unsurprised to discover that Voldemort had located it and used it to make a Horcrux.”

“Are you going to destroy it?” Regulus asks.

“Not yet,” Dumbledore says. “I believe I shall wait until we have retrieved a third one. Controlling Fiendfyre requires great strength and I need to recuperate; bringing this one back with me took quite a toll.”

Snape rolls his eyes in exasperation, but doesn’t say anything.

“So I have brought both of you here to discuss where we might find another one, and what they might be. If we know what to look for, that could speed up our search greatly.”

“The locket belonged to Salazar Slytherin,” Snape says.

Now that Snape mentions it, Regulus remembers seeing a large ‘S’ on the front, which would make sense. “You-Know-Who was a Slytherin, so that makes sense.”

“And the Gaunt ring belonged originally to one of the Peverell brothers, those of the the story about the Elder Wand, the Resurrection Stone, and the Invisibility Cloak,” Dumbledore says.

Regulus takes another look at the ring, noticing a symbol on the black stone. “Is that—”

“It is the Resurrection Stone, yes. And we will need to destroy it.”

“Why? If you find all three objects, you can be master of death! You can defeat You-Know-Who! This is exactly what we need!”

Dumbledore sighs. “No, it is not. We do not know what ‘master of death’ entails, and, dear Regulus, you are young and optimistic. I would not trust myself to be in possession of all three objects, particularly not the Resurrection Stone. As it is, that reminds me, I need you to take something to James for me.”

He rises from his chair and goes to one of the cabinets, taking out a shimmery bundle of fabric that Regulus recognizes  _ quite _ well from his time at Hogwarts.

“You have his Invisibility Cloak?” The cloak was indispensable to James and Sirius when they were students, frequently using it to sneak around the castle at night and conduct research on secret passageways for their pet project, creating a map of Hogwarts that would always accurately reflect the castle at any given time.

Dumbledore hands the garment to Regulus and sits heavily back down in his chair. “I wished to ascertain whether it was truly one of the three objects, as I suspected.”

“And it is?”

Dumbledore nods. “But it is not my Cloak, and the Potters will need the added security, I am sure. Bring it back to James. You may tell him of its origins if you wish, though I doubt that would achieve anything in particular.”

“But giving one object away doesn’t mean you still can’t be more powerful,” Regulus persists. “Why destroy the Resurrection Stone?”

“Besides the fact that it is now a Horcrux, and removing the fragment of Voldemort’s soul may well destroy it anyway, keeping the Resurrection Stone in my possession would prove dangerous. I have too many people whom I might succumb to the temptation to bring back, and in any case...” Dumbledore places his wand on the table, next to the Resurrection Stone. “The three are reunited once again, and I wish to separate them as quickly as possible.”

Regulus has never noticed it before, but Dumbledore’s wand — the  _ Elder Wand _ — is shaped differently from most. The wands he has seen have an obvious handle, meant to be easy to grip. This one is a simple stick of wood.

He clutches the bundled-up Invisibility Cloak a little tighter to himself.

“Voldemort, especially, cannot gain any of these objects,” Dumbledore continues. “The Elder Wand would be the least damning if it fell into his hands, as the holder of the Elder Wand will always lose it sooner or later, but his finding the Resurrection Stone or the Invisibility Cloak would be, you understand, catastrophic. So the Invisibility Cloak must go back to James, to whom it originally belonged, and who can keep it safe inside the Fidelius Charm, and the Resurrection Stone must be destroyed.”

As much as Regulus would like to protest the destruction of one of the Deathly Hallows, no matter how noble the purpose, he can’t deny that Dumbledore is probably right, in the long run. He says nothing.

After a few seconds of the ensuing silence, Snape clears his throat. “I believe I’ve found another possible Horcrux.”

“What is it?” Regulus asks, glad for the slight change of subject.

“The Dark Lord’s snake, Nagini.”

Regulus frowns. “An animal? Is that possible?”

“Entirely so, though the animal may suffer a shorter lifespan because of it,” Dumbledore says. “This is fortunate, though, because killing the animal will destroy the Horcrux, unlike when the piece of soul is stored in an object.”

“Yes, but Nagini is You-Know-Who’s pet snake,” Regulus counters. “How are we supposed to kill it?”

“Kill her,” Snape corrects. “Nagini is female.”

“Okay, kill  _ her, _ then. How are we supposed to do it?”

“Nagini will need to be the last Horcrux to be destroyed,” Dumbledore says. “Voldemort will undoubtedly notice the death of his pet, even if he has yet to notice the disappearances of his other Horcruxes so far, and so we cannot afford to kill her too early, because we risk telegraphing our strategy to him.”

“Okay. So do we know about any others? Or have any ideas about what they might be, or where they are?”

Snape shakes his head, but Dumbledore looks thoughtful. “When Opaline was still under the Imperius curse, I found her searching through the Room of Requirement. She took a tiara with her that appeared quite old. I have since taken it and have it here, in my office. I do not know what its significance is.” He raises his wand, and a tiara soars through the air before landing on his desk. “I will test it to see if it is a Horcrux, and if it is, I will destroy it.”

“That’s the diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw,” Regulus murmurs.

Snape starts. “It is? How do you know? Are you sure?”

“There was a painting of it in my mother’s possession. One of her progenitors had seen it and managed to make a painting of it. It was one of her prized possessions, and always the first thing she showed to visitors. Believe me, I’m quite sure.”

Dumbledore frowns. “The locket of Salazar Slytherin and the diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw. It would make sense for Voldemort to choose an artifact of each Hogwarts founder, for symmetry, though I do not know why he would choose to do that in particular. Helga Hufflepuff left behind several belongings, most of which have since been placed in museums, but the only known items that belonged to Godric Gryffindor are the Sorting Hat and the Sword of Gryffindor.”

“He can’t have turned the Sorting Hat into a Horcrux,” Snape says immediately. “It’s always here.”

“As is the Sword of Gryffindor, Severus. However, I doubt Voldemort would have chosen the Sorting Hat. It seems a bit plain for his tastes.”

So Dumbledore noticed that too. “Well, you can test the Sword of Gryffindor along with the diadem, then,” Regulus says.

“I believe I shall. Now both of you, go back to whatever you were doing. We can’t afford for all of our lives to grind to a halt in order to find Horcruxes.”

 

Regulus receives a terse message from Snape a couple of days later, informing him that the Sword of Gryffindor is safe, and the diadem and the ring are destroyed. He also says that he’s found an old diary in Malfoy Manor, the Death Eaters’ headquarters, that belonged to T. M. Riddle, which Dumbledore informs him is Voldemort’s true name. The headmaster has also destroyed the diary.

 

Later that day, Bellatrix Lestrange sweeps into the Minister’s reception room and comes straight up to his desk. “Regulus! So good to see you!”

“Hello, Aunt Bella,” Regulus says. She’s actually his cousin, but with her being nearly twenty years older than him and Sirius, in her late thirties while Regulus is eighteen and Sirius is barely past twenty, they call her their aunt anyway. “What are you doing here?” He hopes it isn’t to meet with the Minister and put her under the Imperius again, destroying all of their hard work.

Well, Snape’s hard work.

“I have a favor to ask you. I’m sure you know my husband passed away recently.”

“Yes, I was so sorry to hear it.”

Bellatrix laughs a little, as artifical as Regulus’s condolences. “Oh, Regulus, it was arranged, I didn’t like him much anyway. But the Ministry is taking  _ forever _ to transfer my inheritance from him into my vault at Gringotts. Do you think you could maybe try to speed things up a little bit? Talk to the head of the Office of Births, Deaths, and Marriages? I’m sure it’s just red tape getting in the way, but I like knowing that all my things are in one place.”

“Of course, Aunt Bella,” Regulus says, even as he’s summoning up the Legilimency skills he hasn’t used in the past month or so (what a record) and diving into her mind. He only needs a moment to find a clear image of a golden cup with an  _ H _ and a badger embossed on the side — it’s at the clear forefront of her mind, Bellatrix is worrying about it. It must be a relic of Hufflepuff, with the  _ H _ and the badger.

And the coincidence is just too convenient to overlook.

He withdraws from her mind, marveling at how easy it was to find what he was looking for. Bellatrix is a good Occlumens--shouldn’t she be on her guard? But then again, he  _ is _ her nephew, despite being sorted into Gryffindor, and nobody aside from the Marauders know that Regulus has mastered Legilimency. He’s kept that secret for precisely this reason.

“Yes, I’ll talk to them,” he continues. “It should be a fairly simple process, I’m sure they’ve just got a lot of work right now. I’ll get them to prioritize sorting everything out for you.”

“Thanks so much, Regulus. I knew I could count on you.” Bellatrix hugs him over the desk and sweeps back out again.

Regulus sends a memo to Alice, asking her if she could use her Auror authority to immediately look over Rodolphus Lestrange’s will for anything like a golden cup that originally belonged to Helga Hufflepuff, and if so, to let him know.


	9. Chapter 9

The thing Regulus likes about Alice is that she knows how to not ask questions, and she doesn’t, only sending back a memo several hours later that there is something like that on the will, yes, a two-handled cup made of solid gold, attributed to Helga Hufflepuff and intended to go to his widow Bellatrix.

Regulus isn’t surprised one bit, and it’ll be a simple matter to go to the office where they sort out the contents of wills according to who the belongings to go and snatch up the Hufflepuff cup while chatting pleasantly with the on-duty security guard.

 

“You’re working late,” Regulus says to the guard. It’s not actually that late, only about eight, but he knows for a fact that there should be someone else there now to take over. He’d wandered by earlier in the day, and the same young man is still there now.

“The guy who was supposed to take over is sick,” he replies. “Or he just didn’t want to come, I dunno. But I can’t leave until he gets here, so yeah, here I am. What about you?”

Regulus shrugs. “My aunt wanted me to go yell at some people and generally make a fuss about her not getting her inheritance quickly because of all the bureaucratic red tape.”

“Oh, Bellatrix Lestrange?” the guy asks. “Yeah, she was here earlier,” he says at Regulus’s nod. “She, ah, exchanged words with the supervisor, then left.”

“Can I talk to them?” Regulus requests. “I really want to get this cleared up before my aunt comes to visit me at work again. My family drops by all the time now and it’s not conducive at all to getting things done.”

“Yeah, sure,” the guard says. “I just have to scan you to make sure you don’t have any Dark objects on you, then you can go in.” He produces a humming purple rod, which Regulus has seen before. They’re the same type that the caretaker uses at Hogwarts to make sure students aren’t smuggling anything on or off campus. If someone is carrying something Dark, the rod will start shrieking, and Regulus knows from experience that everyone in the immediate vicinity will have ringing ears for days.

The rod stays at a low hum, and the guard steps aside to allow Regulus access to the office.

The supervisor’s office is the first one on the right, which Regulus knows because the door has a plaque fitted to it announcing this fact. The door is open, so he walks right in.

“Good evening,” the man behind the desk says. “What can I help you with?”

“Do you know if there’s any sort of problem with Rodolphus Lestrange’s will that’s preventing people from getting their inheritance?” Regulus asks. He’s not entirely sure that the office is safe. Bellatrix coming here earlier could easily have been a ploy to cast some sort of listening spell.

“No, no problem,” the supervisor says. “We just finished sorting out his will today. Did your aunt send you?”

“Yes,” Regulus admits.

“She was in here herself. Fortunately, we were nearly done by the time she got here, so it was a simple enough matter to send her on her way with the items we’d detained.”

“That’s good,” Regulus says as he’s summoning up his Legilimency.

Just as he’d suspected. If Rodolphus had been using the Imperius curse as a weapon, it stands to reason that Bellatrix would be doing the same. The supervisor’s mind is suffocating behind a wall of darkness, like Alice’s, only this darkness is tinged with a little red, probably from Bellatrix’s magical signature. She’s a powerful witch, more powerful than her husband; it makes sense that hers would be more noticeable that Rodolphus’s.

If the supervisor is under the Imperius curse, Bellatrix must have the Hufflepuff cup that Regulus had noticed in her mind earlier.

So, to retrieve it and check that it’s a Horcrux, they’ll need to get it from her.

 

When he returns to his desk in the reception room, the first thing Regulus does is send an owl to Bellatrix.

 

_ Dear Aunt Bella, _

 

_ I went to the Inheritances office at the end of my workday, but the guard on-duty told me you’d already been there. I checked with the supervisor and he told me they’d sorted out your inheritance already and you’d left with your things. That’s great! Do let me know if you think you’re missing anything, though; I’d be happy to check things over for you. _

_ My condolences again about Uncle Rodolphus. Even if you didn’t care for him much, I hope you suddenly don’t find yourself needing company now that he’s gone. It seems far too easy to get used to having someone around, even if you’re not particularly fond of them. _

_ Hope the sorting out of the inheritance really did go as smoothly as the supervisor said. _

 

_ Love, _

_ Regulus _

 

And surprisingly, it isn’t long before he gets a reply back.

 

_ Dear Regulus, _

 

_ Yes, as it turns out I arrived at exactly the right time! I’ve just finished going about getting everything put away. Rodolphus had a few lovely heirlooms that he kept tucked away, but I’ve gotten some display cases for them so they can actually be seen. Would you like to come tomorrow around teatime to see? It seems like forever since we’ve had a decent chat. _

 

_ Love, _

_ Your Aunt Bella _

 

Regulus can hardly believe it. It’s too good to be true. He can see where she put the Hufflepuff cup, and possibly whatever defenses she put on it, and look to see if any other relics of the founders of Hogwarts can be found in display cases at the Lestranges’ home. She’s probably inviting him over to try and recruit him to Voldemort’s side, anyway, so in the absolute best case scenario he can get into the ranks as a spy. God knows they could use a few more Order spies among the Death Eaters.

He sends a reply back in the affirmative.

 

“Frankly, Rodolphus had no appreciation for  _ anything _ with aesthetic appeal,” Bellatrix says over tea and biscuits. “And some of the things he had,  _ I _ didn’t even know he had! There are heirlooms that must be thousands of years old. Now can you understand what a sheer headache being married to him was?”

“I’m beginning to get an idea, yes,” Regulus replies. “Thousands of years old? What sort of thing would last that long?”

“There’s this one thing that looks like it’s from the tenth century, can you believe it?” Bellatrix takes one last sip of her tea and stands. Regulus does the same. “Here, I’ll show you. It’s some sort of cup. Miniscule, so I can’t imagine it’s all that good for drinking from, but it’s certainly pretty. It has some sort of H on the front, embossed, I think, but I’m not sure which ancestor of his it might have been. Might not have even been an ancestor, his family was in the antiques trade for quite a while.”

So it’s the cup. The Hufflepuff cup. Regulus knows very well that Hogwarts was founded in the late tenth century (it’s practically the first thing mentioned in  _ Hogwarts, a History _ ), so the time frame would be perfect for something belonging to Helga Hufflepuff herself.

And Bellatrix is taking him to see it.

It’s so convenient that Regulus half expects it to be a trap, the way it’s fallen into his lap like this, but no Death Eaters leap out of the shadows at him and Bellatrix doesn’t even take out her wand when they reach the display case that the Hufflepuff cup has all to itself.

It’s on a small stone pedestal, and the case itself is glass, but with a faint gold tint around the corners that makes Regulus suspect it’s warded.

He’s proved right when Bellatrix says, “Now, stay back a little, because if you get too close to the case you might just lose your eyebrows. I took the inspiration from Exploding Snap. I  _ especially _ don’t want anything happening to this. I’m not even taking it to an antiques dealer to assess its value. Doesn’t matter when you’re not planning on selling it, does it?” She casts a Summoning Charm on the case, but it doesn’t budge. “Stuck to the pedestal with a Permanent Sticking Charm, too, just like your mother’s portrait. And of course the pedestal is stuck to the ground.”

Bellatrix shows Regulus a few of the other treasures Rodolphus amassed during his lifetime, like a silver tiara inspired by the Ravenclaw diadem and a jade ring that’s been in the Lestrange family for generations, then he makes his excuses and takes his leave, saying he’s working on getting Grimmauld Place into more livable conditions.

Bellatrix laughs. “It’s a wreck, isn’t it?” she says, and sends him on his way.

 

“Do you remember the locket that I went to go get with Kreacher? The Horcrux?” Regulus asks Sirius that night at home.

Sirius scowls. “You vanish for a couple days, saying you’re at Grimmauld Place, then next thing I know Kreacher appears out of thin air and tells me you’re in danger and Apparates me to a cave, where you’re being attacked by  _ Inferi —  _ why, yes, I believe I remember that. Why do you ask?”

“There’s another Horcrux I need to get.”

His brother sighs. “At least you’re asking for help this time instead of diving in with just Kreacher. Where is it now, in a dragon’s nest in South America?”

“Worse. Bellatrix’s house.”

“Of course it is,” Sirius groans. “All right. What do you need me to do?”

 

The two of them (and Remus, Lily, and James, once they’ve explained the plan) spend the next few days hastily cleaning up Grimmauld Place, to lend some credibility to the story Regulus told Bellatrix.

Once it’s clean enough that all five of them consider it safe and clean enough to live in, Regulus owls Bellatrix inviting her over to see the work he’s done on the place.

 

“All right,” Sirius says during their final planning meeting at Godric’s Hollow. “I still need your Invisibility Cloak, James, and I guess we’ll drop off the Pensieve along with the Horcrux?”

Regulus nods. “Makes sense.” None of them had one, so they’d had to borrow Dumbledore’s so Regulus could show the others what the protection on the Hufflepuff cup looked like.

“I’ll get the guest room ready in case of another medical emergency,” Remus says.

They sit in silence for a brief moment before Lily says, “I’m not sure there’s anything left to plan.”

“There isn’t,” Sirius replies. “Except the Invisibility Cloak—” James hands it to him. “Right, thanks. I guess we’ll... just go, then.”

 

Sirius puts on the Invisibility Cloak before he and Regulus Apparate to Bellatrix’s house. When she opens the door, Sirius will slip inside, and then Regulus and Bellatrix will go to Grimmauld Place to admire the renovations. Regulus will make as many excuses as possible to keep Bellatrix there until he knows Sirius has gotten out of the house— they can’t communicate directly, so Sirius will give Amelia Bones the signal and Amelia will owl Regulus, ostensibly for something to do with the Ministry.

It is by no means a perfect plan— they have no backup, and very little knowledge of the security measures on House Lestrange, but it’s the best they can do under the circumstances.

Obviously, the door knocker is snake-shaped, and Regulus knocks a few times. Bellatrix should be expecting him.

Sure enough, she opens the door a few seconds later. “Hello!”

“Hi, Aunt Bellatrix. Still going through Rodolphus’s collection?” Regulus asks.

“Oh, not really,” Bellatrix replies. “I picked out the most valuable ones for display and I’m having some curators or whoever sort through the rest. I imagine they’re having great fun looking through everything.”

“Probably.” Regulus hopes he’s given Sirius enough time to get through the door. “Let’s get going, then, shall we?”

 

They really didn’t have an opportunity to do much to Grimmauld Place. A full day was spent casting Cleaning Charms on most things and Vanishing the particularly ugly things. James rearranged the color schemes of most of the rooms, Lily repaired old carpets and wallpaper, and the other three, Remus, Sirius, and Regulus, went around finding the creepy or Dark objects and shutting them in the attic. Kreacher puttered about, dusting an antique clock here or straightening a rug there. It didn’t take very long for the house to look passable, and not much longer for it to look rather nice.

With the new renovations, Regulus is confident that the house will be much easier to sell, once this whole war thing is over and he can concentrate on things like selling houses.

Still, Bellatrix oohs and aahs appropriately as he walks her through the changes they’ve made (most of the walls are now a refined dove gray, there are violet carpets and tastefully arranged furniture— James does have quite the eye for interior decorating) and Regulus is optimistic about their chances to recover the Horcrux.

But time passes and passes and there’s still no owl from Amelia, so in hope of keeping Bellatrix occupied for a little while longer, Regulus offers to make tea.

“Kreacher is still working on the attic, I won’t bother him,” he says. “I’ll go make some, would you like to talk to Mother’s portrait in the meantime?”

Bellatrix smiles. “I hadn’t realized she’d had a portrait made.” 

Regulus doesn’t mention that the only reason it still exists is because none of them have worked out how to remove the Permanent Sticking Charm. Sirius even Vanished part of the wall in one attempt to get rid of it.

Bellatrix goes down the hallway to talk to the family matriarch, and Regulus hurries into the kitchen.

Tea doesn’t take long to make, so he finds himself slowing the steps down more than ever, listening to Bellatrix and Walburga’s portrait discuss what Bellatrix inherited from her late husband, until for some reason the voices stop and footsteps, presumably Bellatrix’s, rush down the hallway.

It is indeed Bellatrix who bursts into the kitchen and says, “We have to go back to my house.”

“Why?”

“I’ve been alerted— someone is trying to break in.”

Regulus swallows and drops the teacup he’s holding, purposely for once, though he manufactures an expression of shock and starts Occluding immediately. Whether or not Bellatrix is a Legilimens, he doesn’t know, and would rather not find out. “I’ll owl Alice Longbottom and get some Aurors over there, then let’s go.”

“Fine,” Bellatrix agrees. “You go do that, I’ll fix the teacup.” It’s shattered quite impressively across the floor of newly polished wood.

Regulus runs up to his room, where he keeps quill and ink, but he doesn’t write down a message. Fast as owls are, he needs something faster. “ _ Expecto patronum.” _ It takes a moment longer than usual for his Patronus— some type of dog, possibly a retriever, Regulus isn’t sure, though he’s tried to figure out what it is— to appear, possibly because of his preoccupiedness. “For Alice Longbottom.  _ Someone _ has broken into Bellatrix Lestrange’s house. Send your most trustworthy Aurors, Bellatrix thinks the thief is after some valuables of hers.” Then he sends it off to deliver the message.

That’ll have to do. There’s no guarantee that Alice will understand that he wants her to send Order members, and there’s no guarantee that they’ll get to Bellatrix’s house and extract Sirius before he and Bellatrix do. But it’s the best he can do, considering.

He waits a minute or so, enough to have plausibly dashed off a note and sent it to the Ministry, then hurries back downstairs, where Bellatrix is waiting. The two of them run out the door to get past the Apparition wards, then go to Bellatrix’s house.

Regulus’s heart sinks a little when he notices that the house still appears deserted. The Aurors aren’t here yet, and so Sirius is probably still inside. It would take a miracle for him to be safe. The only thing to do is go inside with Bellatrix and comb the house for the intruder.

“We should stick together,” he says. “I know we’ll be slower that way, but I don’t want to run the risk of getting overpowered. Do you have an idea of where they are?”

Bellatrix nods and heads straight for the corridor leading to where the Hufflepuff cup is displayed. Regulus follows behind her.

Sirius has left a trail of destruction in the antiques displays, breaking glass and wards, snatching a few things and leaving empty plinths and pedestals, or sometimes just knocking things over. Had he gotten out undetected, he would have concealed his aim fairly well.

Then they reach the spot where the Cup is normally stored and Regulus’s heart drops down to his stomach.


	10. Chapter 10

The Cup’s pedestal is empty, and the floor is almost empty as well. The only thing visible is a hand, but there seems to be no arm attached.

Judging by the lack of blood, Regulus is almost certain that the rest of Sirius is under the Invisibility Cloak.

This is damning enough, should they remove the Cloak, but Sirius is also wearing a ring.

It’s one he usually wears. Hogwarts doesn’t have class rings, so they had cooked up these substitutes: gold, with ruby inlay. Regulus has a similar one himself.

“I know that ring,” Regulus says, then drops to his knees next to where he’s pretty sure Sirius is and lifts off the Cloak. His brother is unconscious, with a shallow cut down the side of his face— probably a jinx on the Cup. “Sirius! What on  _ earth _ are you doing here?” He crumples the Invisibility Cloak into a small enough bundle that it can fit in his pocket. “This Invisibility Cloak is  _ mine _ . He must have stolen it— I can’t imagine why.”

“Do you know why he might have been after the cup?” Bellatrix asks, indicating the pedestal, which is empty.

Regulus widens his eyes. “No, I don’t. But I can find out.”

“There’s a Tongue-Tying Jinx in the protective spells, he won’t be able to tell you anything.”

He conjures a chair and lifts the still-unconscious Sirius into it, using ropes both to apparently secure him and to hold him upright. “Sirius’s mind is quite open to me, probably because I always practiced my Legilimency on him when I was learning.  _ Rennervate.” _

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Bellatrix asks, one hand on her wand, as Sirius starts to wake up. “He might attack.”

“He’s tied up and has no wand.” Regulus waves Sirius’s wand. “And I know for a fact he’s not good at wandless magic. Besides, he’s still waking up, and there are two of us. What could he do?”

“Well, I’ll be ready.” Bellatrix draws her wand as Sirius wakes up.

Regulus makes direct eye contact with Sirius for a moment, doing exactly nothing otherwise besides making sure he’s got his Occlumency shield up properly, then says grimly, “He’s been Imperiused.”

Which he hasn’t, but Bellatrix doesn’t need to know that.

Sirius hears Regulus’s command—  _ pretend you’ve been Imperiused or we’re not getting out of here _ — and 

“How do you know?”

“Have you ever used Legilimency on someone under the Imperius curse?” He doesn’t wait for Bellatrix to answer. “Their own thoughts can’t rise to the surface. There’s just blankness and the voice of someone saying commands.”

“Fascinating. Then who did it, and where’s the Cup?”

He shrugs. “I don’t recognize the voice. It’s male, not that that narrows anything down much. If we can get the curse off Sirius he might be able to tell us who did it.”

“The Cup?” Bellatrix persists.

“I have no idea. It looks like Sirius got knocked unconscious by the wards and protection spells, but the cup is still gone— maybe someone else was here too? Do you know?”

She looks a bit doubtful. “The wards only detected one magical signature, but there are spells and artifacts that cloak those. And it doesn’t rule out a house-elf.”

“Kreacher’s mine. Unless Sirius stole him too, which I doubt as they don’t much like each other.”

Then they hear the front door opening and Alice Longbottom’s voice saying, “Spread out, the thief might still be here.”

“Let’s just stay here, they’re bound to get to us eventually and Alice does know they were probably after valuables,” Regulus suggests. In all reality he just doesn’t want Bellatrix searching Sirius for the Cup, as it must be on him somewhere.

She nods. “Fine, but I’m Stunning him again.”

They wait and hear the methodical footsteps of the Auror team she’s brought with her. It sounds fairly small, so Regulus hopes that she understood the message and only brought those who were members of the Order.

Frank Longbottom is the first one to appear at the end of the corridor. He hurries over to Regulus and Bellatrix and looks inquiringly at them.

Regulus doesn’t give Bellatrix a chance to speak. “We got back and found him on the floor unconscious. I used Legilimency— he’s been Imperiused, and we think there might have been another person as we didn’t find some of the things.”

Frank frowns. “Well, then, we’ll have to hold him in Ministry custody until we can be sure that the curse is off of him. Is there any way for you to find out who cast it?”

“Being under the Imperius shields your thoughts even better than Occlumency does. I can’t even go into his recent memories to find out who he saw last.”

“Then we’ll just take him to the Ministry.” Frank turns to Bellatrix. “Not to fear, Madam Lestrange, we’ll figure out who’s responsible for this. What was he trying to take?”

Bellatrix explains about the Cup, and that seems to be the last information Frank needs, because he just nods before calling the other Aurors, who thunder down the stairs in a group. All of them are faces Regulus recognizes from Order meetings. They conjure a stretcher and borrow Bellatrix’s fireplace to Floo to the Ministry holding cells.

Alice stays behind after the others have already left with Sirius. “We’ll try to let him wake up naturally, but if that doesn’t work we’ll use magic. We have a few methods of breaking Imperius curses and we’ll let you know immediately if any of them work or if we have any progress on finding your possessions. Do you have any questions?”

Bellatrix shakes her head and Alice leaves. Regulus makes his excuses— he doesn’t want to stick around and accidentally admit his guilt— and Floos back to the Ministry as well. He  _ does _ have work, after all.

 

Regulus idly reorganizes his ink at his desk for ten minutes before going down to the Ministry holding cells, where Sirius will be. If he’s woken up, Regulus can hopefully smuggle out the Cup.

That is, assuming Sirius has it, of course.

Amelia, their planned messenger, is already at the entrance to the cells, speaking with Alice. They wave Regulus over.

“I’ve just finished explaining the mission to Alice,” Amelia mutters. “Anything you’d like to add?”

“I need to go see Sirius. Alone,” Regulus adds. Neither woman knows about the Horcruxes and he’d like to keep it that way. “Has he woken up?”

“He did for a few minutes,” Alice replies. “Then he decided he was tired and went back to sleep. Come with me, I’ll take you to the cell. Thanks for letting me know, Amelia.”

Amelia nods and leaves as Alice opens the door. There are several rows of cells, and Alice leads Regulus to an out-of-the-way one in the back corner. “We didn’t want people wondering what he was doing here.”

“Of course.”

Sirius is sleeping, sprawled out on the cot provided, but when Alice unlocks the cell door he sits up straight. “Oh, hello, there.”

“What happened?” Regulus asks as Alice ushers him in, then closes the door and takes a few steps away for privacy.

Sirius shrugs. “Wards. Bellatrix is nasty. But I believe I have something for you.” He digs around in his back pocket for a moment before finding what he was looking for and showing Regulus a miniscule pouch, hardly even a scrap of cloth. “I haven’t got my wand, I had to give it up. Can you unshrink this?”

Regulus does so, and it expands to a much more reasonable size, though still not quite the size of his hand. Sirius reaches inside and pulls out the Hufflepuff cup.

“Undetectable Extension Charm?”

“Yep. Anyway, take this, and get me released while you’re at it. This bed is uncomfortable.”

 

Regulus goes to Dumbledore that night with the Hufflepuff cup and leaves a few minutes later knowing that it’s been destroyed.

So now the only Horcruxes they need to find are the relic of Gryffindor (assuming there is one, which Dumbledore is increasingly starting to doubt), and Nagini.

Regulus is not eager to try and kill that snake, so he hopes somebody else will take up the task.

He owls Snape as soon as he gets home, telling him of the development.

 

The Death Eaters still haven’t attacked the Ministry, and Regulus can feel himself getting increasingly jumpier. He takes to working late, long past everyone except the security guards has gone home, starting whenever he hears a noise besides the sound of himself writing things down and turning pages.

Four days later, he hears a muffled crash from somewhere outside the reception room, and Regulus doesn’t want to take chances.

He uses the Minister’s fireplace to Floo directly to Dumbledore’s office, not even leaving the fireplace, just telling him to assemble the Order to defend the Ministry and taking more Floo powder from Dumbledore’s stock. Then he goes to Godric’s Hollow to tell James and Lily what’s going to happen.

“You understand that you need to stay home,” Regulus adds at the end of his explanation.

“What?” James protests. “This is when we’re needed most! The Order will need all the help we can get over at the Ministry, you know we will, and Lily and I know how to protect ourselves, it’s not like we’re first years.”

“Prophecy,” Regulus says. “That’s why you went under the Fidelius Charm in the first place. If it’s usually dangerous for you to leave, can you imagine how much worse it’ll be for you to walk straight into a confrontation with You-Know-Who? Do you think he won’t target you if he knows you’re there? Besides, Harry needs you. Nobody else in the Order has children as young as him. You need to stay here.”

“But there’s no reason we can’t make ourselves useful,” Lily says. “Tell Remus, and anyone else who might take people out of the fight to heal them, that if their lives aren’t immediately in danger, they can come here. We’ll be ready to help heal people. We can do that, at least. Be a safe refuge.”

“Exactly,” Regulus says. “That’s another reason we’ll need you here, to heal people. I’m sure this battle will be a bloody one.”

James looks like he wants to protest even more, but then says, “Fine, I’ll get the spare beds ready,” and goes to the spare room Regulus stayed in after his experience at the lake.

“I need to go now,” Regulus says to Lily. “I’ll have to tell Remus that you’re ready for any injured Order members, and I need to be there to kill Nagini.”

“You-Know-Who’s snake?” Lily frowns. “Why?”

“We can’t defeat him until she’s dead,” Regulus sighs. “And I’m one of the few people who know that, so my guess is I’ll probably have to be the one to do it, unless someone else steps in first.”

“Good luck,” Lily says. “Get out of there alive.”

“I’ll do my best,” Regulus says, just before going to the fireplace and Flooing back into the Minister’s office, making sure to watch his head as he steps in. 

 

The rest of the Order is assembled there as well, just like he asked Dumbledore, and it’s a simple matter to announce to the room in a hushed voice that Lily and James will be ready to heal anybody who arrives injured at Godric’s Hollow. Then Dumbledore takes charge, discussing the battle plan.

“We don’t know exactly where the Death Eaters are right now, but our priority is defending the Department of Mysteries. Severus is with the Death Eaters, to avoid arousing suspicion, but he’ll try to make it obvious to all of us which one he is, so we know not to aim for him, and in any case he knows how to cast a Shield Charm. If you need to hex him to keep his cover, just telegraph your spell and he’ll block it. Peter Pettigrew is also with the Death Eaters. Feel free to aim at him, as I can assure all of you that he is not secretly working for us.

“Divide into groups of two or three, preferably three. Two groups need to guard the lifts on the ground floor and the floor of the Department of Mysteries, and two more need to guard the Atrium and the exits there. The rest of us will be going to the Department of Mysteries to intercept the Death Eaters.”

Remus goes with the main group to the Department of Mysteries, intending to follow the fighting and Apparate out with anyone who’s been incapacitated. Sirius decides to go with him.

“Are you coming with us?” Sirius asks Regulus.

“Yes,” he replies, but it’s a half-lie. Regulus will battle his way in, kill Nagini, and battle his way out, not staying to incapacitate any more Death Eaters than those who attack him while he’s leaving. He’s going to defend the exits, since they clearly need more than five or so people to cover all of them. Regulus knows the Ministry well from working there, so it only makes sense for him to guard the ways out.

“Alright. Make sure you keep yourself safe out there, okay? We’ll lose track of each other eventually, and I don’t want you doing anything reckless.”

Regulus smiles a little at  _ Sirius _ telling him not to be reckless. “Pot calling the kettle black, right?”

“Exactly. Don’t worry, I’ll be looking out for myself too.”

“I expect nothing less. If you don’t come out of this alive and well there will be hell to pay.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” Then they start moving, swept along in the mass of Order members all heading to the Department of Mysteries, led by Dumbledore and Pandora Lovegood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're getting close to wrapping it up!


	11. Chapter 11

Death Eaters are spaced out evenly in the hallways of the Department of Mysteries, divided into teams, just like the Order is. They’re Stunned or Petrified as the Order approaches.

Dumbledore prevents any of the Death Eaters from casting spells with a flick of his wand, leaving them perfectly open to spells from the Order, meant to incapacitate but not kill. Killing is Voldemort’s plan of attack, not theirs.

Dumbledore leads the way to the end of a long corridor lit with torches, where there’s a door, but he halts before opening it and casts a silent spell that Regulus thinks is probably  _ Homenum revelio, _ checking to see if the Death Eaters are on the other side prepared to ambush the Order.

Judging from Dumbledore’s reaction, that’s exactly what they’re prepared to do, and Dumbledore whispers something to Pandora that gets passed down through the group of people before it gets to Regulus, who’s placed himself precisely in the middle.

_ “Cast your Shield Charm on three.” _

Once Dumbledore is satisfied that the message has reached the very back of the group, he raises his hand above everyone’s heads, first holding up one finger, then two, then three, and on the third one everyone casts their Shield Charms and Dumbledore breaks down the door, immediately starting to proceed into the room.

Regulus can hear the shouts of curses and hexes coming from Death Eaters, before the Order starts organizing into small clumps hidden behind one person’s Shield Charm, while the others fire spells back at the Death Eaters.

By the time he gets into the room (they proceed forward rather slowly due to all the spells flying around), the Death Eaters and Order members are starting to break off into duelling pairs, as they are wont to do.  Some people drop their own Shield Charms and run headfirst into the fray, shooting spells at any Death Eater they see, before inevitably becoming engaged in a duel. Regulus keeps up his own Shield Charm and walks slowly with Marlene McKinnon, who’s had the same idea. She stays behind his Shield and sends Stunners and Impediment Jinxes at the Death Eaters, but Regulus can tell she’s getting impatient at the slow pace. Marlene may actually have a sense of self-preservation, but on the other hand, she, like most of the Gryffindors present, also likes to plunge into battles without planning a thing first. It’s probably Remus’s influence that keeps Regulus from doing just that.

So Regulus rolls his eyes and tells her to go fight someone, which she does, and then he’s free to retreat to the walls and search for Nagini.

The room that they’re in is large and circular, surrounded by doors, and if that wasn’t bad enough, the walls spin, around and around and around. Thankfully, the floor stays put, as Regulus isn’t sure he could handle a spinning floor as well.

So he retreats to stand by the wall, but looking for Nagini is harder than he’d anticipated. For one thing, there’s a wall of people fighting in front of him, which makes it difficult to see more than five feet ahead. For another, Voldemort is either in the thick of it or someplace else entirely, and Regulus is willing to bet that wherever he is, Nagini’s with him, which will make it nearly impossible to find her and kill her. If Regulus tried to force his way into the maelstrom at the center of the room, he would undoubtedly die or at least be crushed, and he doesn’t fancy the idea of meeting Voldemort on his own.

But Regulus needs to stick to his plan, and if he can’t kill Nagini, then the option that remains is to go back to the Atrium and help guard it. 

The door that they entered through is still somehow open, which Regulus is grateful for, but getting through it while the room is spinning is a feat he wishes he didn’t have to attempt. 

The door passes by him three times before he manages to dash through it in time, hurrying back through the long corridor to the lift. The Death Eaters he sees are all still unconscious or Petrified, and the number of them now seems similar to what it was the first time they walked through, so he hopes not too many of them have gone to the Atrium already.

The lift is empty when Regulus gets there, and the doors are just sliding shut when two Death Eaters come racing down the hallway towards him. One of them raises their wand at Regulus, but he fires a silent Stunner and the Death Eater goes down. 

He aims at the other one next, who hisses, “It’s me, you idiot!”

Regulus lowers his wand and lets Snape get into the lift. The other man promptly takes off his hood and mask as soon as the doors are safely shut.

“I couldn’t find Nagini,” Regulus says.

“I couldn’t either,” Snape replies. “We need to wait for the Dark Lord to show himself.”

“How do you know that he will?”

“Dumbledore is here,” Snape says. “Here and ready to fight. How could he  _ not _ challenge him to a duel? It’s a matter of pride. And all of us want to see who would win, I don’t need to use Legilimency to see that. Defeating Dumbledore would guarantee loyalty from the Dark Lord’s more fickle followers, so he also needs to do it.”

When the lift doors open into the Atrium, Regulus raises his wand defensively, but nobody is there except other Order members, and now he understands why Snape took off his mask so quickly. If Regulus had stepped out of the lift with a Death Eater, there’s a good chance both of them would get hit by multiple curses at the same time, as it doesn’t appear the Order has much to do otherwise.

Just then, a thought strikes Regulus, and he turns to Snape. “You stay here, help guard the exits. I’m going to the Minister’s office.”

“The Minister’s office? Why?” Snape asks.

“The panic rock!” Regulus calls over his shoulder as he starts running.

As always, it sits on the corner of Bagnold’s desk, acting as a pretty green paperweight. Regulus points his wand at it and hisses under his breath,  _ “Arcessenda auxilia!” _

The stone trembles before its surface is flooded with ruby red, and Regulus waits for Aurors and security personnel alike to Floo into the Minister’s office.

They arrive remarkably quickly. He knows the whole purpose of the panic rock is to summon assistance immediately, but still, it’s less than a minute before the first Auror arrives and looks considerably confused to see Regulus Black, and no Minister, in the room.

“I’ll explain once more people are here,” Regulus says.

The woman nods and ten minutes later, it seems that most of the Auror department, along with several security guards, are standing in the room.

Regulus climbs on top of the chair so he can be seen better. “Right. Well. I know you’re all wondering what I’m doing calling you all here in the middle of the night, so I’ll just say it quickly: You- Know-Who and his Death Eaters are attacking the Department of Mysteries and the Order of the Phoenix could  _ really _ use some help fighting them.”

And it really is impressive to see how quickly and efficiently all the people in the room organize themselves into teams, both to guard the exits and to go attack. The security guards all choose to guard exits, since that’s their day job anyway, and some of the Aurors go with them while others go in a large group to the Department of Mysteries.

Regulus goes back into the Atrium, where so far they really don’t need  _ more _ help, since absolutely nobody has tried to escape yet. Still, they’ll probably have work to do closer to the end of the battle — Regulus just doesn’t know when that’ll be.

“Having fun?” he asks when he joins Fabian and Gideon Prewett by the main exit.

Gideon raises his eyebrows at Regulus. “Did you really just ask that?”

Regulus shrugs. “Nothing else to do but make conversation, really.”

“Too true.”

And yet, they still fall silent, watching the lift for any sort of movement, but the only movement that Regulus sees is the water in the fountain splashing into the basin. The sound it makes, however quiet it is, echoes throughout the Atrium.

It feels like hours before they hear the  _ ding _ that announces the arrival of the lift on their floor. The Prewett brothers stiffen. Regulus draws his wand.

When the doors of the lift open, what seems like an impossible amount of Death Eaters spill through, and the Order members, Aurors, and security guards in the Atrium trade looks. No more sitting around.

The Death Eaters seem a little more concerned with organizing themselves, though, as they’d basically fallen out of the lift in a tangle of arms and legs and long robes, which Regulus has  _ never _ thought are a good idea during a fight. Honestly, he’s not sure why Voldemort mandates that the Death Eaters wear those. They’re ridiculously inconvenient. Then again, though, anything even remotely different would have to be heavily influenced by Muggle clothing, and of  _ course _ none of them are going to wear anything like that.

Once they do manage to get themselves upright and relatively untangled, though, they notice that they’re standing in a clump in a room where every single exit except the lift behind them is guarded.

However, they don’t get an opportunity to do anything about it, though, as the lift  _ dings _ again and a heap of Order members spill out, right on top of the Death Eaters.

It’s almost comical, really. Clearly, the Death Eaters had tried to make a break for it, only to be chased by the Order, and they all tried to get into the lift at once. The lift  _ dings _ a third time, then a fourth, and finally by the fifth time, everyone seems to be assembled in the Atrium, staring at each other.

Regulus spots Sirius, absolutely drenched but otherwise fine, and Remus, whose sweater is bloodstained, but he’s standing confidently, so the blood probably isn’t his. Regulus assumes Remus has been occupied by Apparating injured Order members to Godric’s Hollow. Snape has put his mask and hood back on and ducked over into the crowd of Death Eaters.

There’s only one person missing, though, and his absence is somewhat noticeable.

When the lift  _ dings _ for the sixth time, nobody has any doubt that it must be Voldemort.

He strolls out of the open lift, Nagini at his feet. The Order members have arranged themselves around all of the exits, leaving the Death Eaters to cluster by that lift. They make way for their master.

Voldemort steps into the center of the Atrium. Dumbledore walks out to face him.

“Do you have a bad feeling about this?” Fabian Prewett whispers.

“Absolutely,” Regulus replies, turning his attention to the balconies around the Atrium. “They could easily attack us from up there, they’d have far higher visibility, and they wear black anyway so it’d be hard to see them in all the shadows.”

In the center of the room, Dumbledore says, “Hello, Tom.”

“My name is Lord Voldemort,” Voldemort says coolly.

“No,” Dumbledore corrects, “it is a title. Your name is Tom Marvolo Riddle, and it is past time that your followers knew that.”

“Are you going to stand here and talk at me, Dumbledore?” Voldemort wants to know. “An old fool thinks he can just talk and talk and that’ll make everything fine again. Wars are not solved with words, Dumbledore, they are solved with  _ force.” _

“Would you like me to force this war to end?” Dumbledore asks quietly.

Voldemort laughs, a silky, cold, scornful chuckle. “How could you? You can’t even kill someone. You lack the strength to force  _ anything _ here.”

“We will have to agree to disagree on that point,” Dumbledore replies. “The power you sought is in a room that is always locked out of necessity. That power governs the very fabric of our world, and I am afraid it is not yours to control.”

“More words, Dumbledore?”

“Duels are rarely good ways of imparting knowledge to another.”

“If I struck right now,” Voldemort says, “would you fight?”

Dumbledore shrugs. “I cannot say what I would do, as it hasn’t happened yet. The future, Tom, is fluid, never locked in place. There are many plausible outcomes of this encounter, and none are particularly more likely than the others.”

“Or are you afraid to finally duel me?”

“I said no such thing, Tom. However, before we begin, as I regret to say that we will, I would like to know why you are so confident that you will win.”

Voldemort laughs again. “I have power you don’t know about, Dumbledore! I have pushed the boundaries of life itself further than any wizard before me, in a way you cannot understand, because you are  _ afraid _ to.”

“That was rather the answer I expected,” Dumbledore says. “Shall we begin?”


	12. Chapter 12

Voldemort inclines his head. Dumbledore does the same. They raise their wands, but just as the words  _ ‘avada kedavra’ _ are forming on Voldemort’s lips, Regulus spots a flash of red hair up in the balcony, then a voice shouting,  _ “REDUCTO!” _

A bolt of blue light streaks towards Nagini and the snake disintegrates on the spot.

Voldemort looks at his fallen snake, then at Dumbledore, and Regulus looks around the room for the culprit, but before he sees anyone likely, his eyes meet Sirius’s, and there’s a clear question in them.

Regulus nods.

On the count of three, they point their wands at Voldemort and fire curses. Regulus’s  _ Petrificus totalus  _ hits the Dark Lord at the same time as Sirius’s  _ Incarcerous,  _ as well as Marlene’s  _ Expelliarmus _ and Kingsley’s  _ Stupefy. _ And Voldemort isn’t the only person the Order has simultaneously decided to attack, either — Bellatrix Lestrange is Petrified, Lucius Malfoy falls to the floor unconscious, Augustus Rookwood finds himself weaponless.

Then Severus Snape, standing in the front on the side of the Death Eaters, once again takes off his mask and hood, points his wand at Voldemort’s unconscious form on the floor, and cries,  _ “Sectumsempra!” _

That starts the Death Eaters fighting in earnest. Snape Apparates out of the crowd before someone kills him, appearing right behind Regulus.

The Order Stuns and Petrifies their way through the Death Eaters, who are confused and disorganized without their leader.  _ Like chickens running around with their heads cut off, _ Regulus thinks. The Aurors and security guards take charge of taking all of them into custody, and soon the only people wearing Death Eater robes in the room are Snape and Voldemort, who is finally bleeding less heavily than when Snape’s curse struck him.

Dumbledore stands over Voldemort’s body for a few moments, looking down at him. Everyone watches anxiously, wondering the same thing:  _ is he alive? _

The headmaster frowns and waves his wand over Voldemort, saying,  _ “Rennervate.” _

Nothing happens, despite the fact that a  _ Rennervate _ should be enough to reawaken someone who has been hit by a single  _ Stupefy, _ and all of them grasp the significance at the same time and a cheer rises up from the crowd.

Then Regulus becomes aware of someone shouting his name and turns to see Lily Potter. 

“Did my Blasting Curse destroy the Horcrux?” she asks.

Regulus guesses he must look rather comical, as Lily smiles in amusement before continuing. “I assumed Nagini had to be a Horcrux, since you said Voldemort couldn’t be killed until she was dead, and I was healing Kingsley when he got the message from the Stone of Assistance. I figured you could probably use my help, and it looks like I was right.”

“I would have killed Nagini if you hadn’t gotten there first,” Regulus says.

“Sure, Reg.”

And ordinarily Regulus would roll his eyes at the nickname, but right now he just feels overwhelmed, so he settles for shaking his head. “I’m going to kill James.”

“You do that,” Lily says. “He might try to kill you first, though, for making him stay out of the fight but practically telling me to come.”

“Oh, we’re all alive, what more does he want?”

Then Regulus feels a crushing pressure around his ribs and knows it’s one of Sirius’s infamous bear hugs. “You alright?”

“Perfectly fine,” Sirius replies. “My robes were on fire briefly, but Edgar Bones handled that. Unfortunately, I still seem to be wet, but we’ll both recover.”

Regulus shoves him. “Get off me.”

“Now, didn’t you hear what I just said? We’ll both recover. A little water never hurt anybody.”

“Where’s Remus?”

“Oh, I saw him Apparate out with Kingsley earlier,” Lily says. “It looked like Remus was dragging him, but then I  _ did _ tell Kingsley not to come back and fight more and he did so anyway. I suspect Remus’s Healer instincts are taking over right now.”

“Let’s go back to Godric’s Hollow, then,” Regulus says. “He’ll get there sooner or later.”

 

Remus is already there when they arrive, actually. He explains that he and Kingsley left while everyone else was taking the Death Eaters into custody, as Kingsley wasn’t really needed and the poor man needed to go home. “Shacklebolt looked green,” Remus finishes. “I took him home and made him go to bed.”

When Lily, Sirius, and Regulus had arrived at the cottage, they found James pacing back and forth in the sitting room, with Harry asleep in his room upstairs. Remus was sitting on the couch drinking tea.

Now all of them have cups of tea in front of them, and at James’ insistence, they’re going over exactly what happened at the Ministry. When Sirius reaches the part where he caught on fire, James starts laughing so hard there are tears in his eyes.

“What’s so funny about that?” Sirius asks indignantly.

James wipes his eyes. “Well, it shouldn’t be funny, really, but here I was thinking you just fell into the Fountain of Magical Brethren, and here you were caught on  _ fire, _ and you could be dead, and it just—” He stops talking, but Regulus understands. He’s still riding high on the adrenaline of that final battle, himself, and everything still hasn’t sunk in yet.

When they’re about finished updating James on everything that’s happened, they hear footsteps on the stairs and turn to see Harry standing at the bottom, hair rumpled, in the pajamas Regulus bought him a few weeks ago with Snitches on them. (James, Lily, and Remus can say whatever they like, Harry’s going to play Seeker if Regulus has anything to say about it. And Sirius, the idiot, thinks Harry’ll be the commentator. The other four shut him down after hearing that. Harry flies  _ far _ too well already to be the commentator.)

“Uncle Moony, tell me a story!” Harry cries delightedly, running to the couch and jumping on Remus’s lap.

Sirius and Regulus trade resigned, yet amused glances over Harry’s head. “Guess we know who’s the favorite uncle, then,” Sirius says.

“Of course I’m the favorite, you two haven’t the faintest idea how to interact with children,” Remus replies. “Alright, Harry, what kind of story do you want?”

“I wanna story about Wilbur the Wizard and Lucy the Lion!”

“Alright! So one day Wilbur and Lucy were going to the ice cream shop...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter 'cause this is the end! There'll be an epilogue and then Heart of a Lion will be complete.


	13. Epilogue: About Ten Years Later

The day after James and Lily receive Harry’s first letter home from Hogwarts, Sirius, Remus, and Regulus go to Godric’s Hollow to read it with them. Or rather, James reads it aloud (he and Lily have read it already, but Regulus can’t blame them) and the rest of them listen.

 

_ Dear Mum, Dad, Uncle Moony, Uncle Padfoot, and Uncle Reg, _

 

_ I’m in Gryffindor, like all of you! I met a boy on the train and his name’s Ron and he’s in Gryffindor too so we chose the beds right next to each other, and he has FIVE older brothers! I met three of them, they’re all in Gryffindor, and two of them are nice but one of them’s a bit of a prat, Ron says so too. _

_ And you remember that boy we met at Madam Malkin’s, Draco Malfoy? He was on the train too, so me and Ron and Draco sat together, but Draco’s been sorted into Slytherin so we should be House enemies but we agreed to stay friends anyway, just to annoy people who think we shouldn’t be. And we had flying lessons! Some people didn’t know how to fly so we had to start with the basics, like saying UP, but this one git from Slytherin threw Neville’s (he’s another boy in my dorm) Remembrall into the air and I caught it before it hit the ground and McGonagall saw me but instead of giving me detention for flying without teacher supervision she got me a place on the Quidditch team! (Draco says the Slytherin boy’s going to regret it, but he also says he’s not going to tell me and Ron anything because of ‘plausible deniability.’) _

_ The captain’s name is Oliver Wood, he plays Keeper, and he says I’m the youngest Seeker in over a hundred years! The last Seeker that Gryffindor had who was any good graduated already, but he was one of Ron’s brothers, so that’s cool. Ron says he’s going to try and introduce me. _

_ Oh, and Snape said hi to me in the first Potions class, so I guess he remembers me. He did ask me a bunch of questions about Potions, though, so (I will never say this again) thanks for making me read my textbook over the summer, Mum. _

_ Anyway, now I need to do homework, so I’ll write you again next week. _

 

_ Love, _

_ Harry _

 

“He’s playing Seeker,” Regulus says. 

“Don’t be smug just because he’s playing your old position,” James grumbles. Regulus joined the Gryffindor Quidditch team in fourth year as Seeker, the same year James made captain, and kept that spot on the team for the rest of his time at Hogwarts. James is better than him, though, even though they play different positions; if not for the war and having to go into hiding, the Marauders collectively agree that he could have gone professional. However, none of them can blame him for deciding to go for a quieter life.

“I’m not being smug. Now, didn’t all of us say something about making a bet about what position Harry would play?”

Lily sighs. “Yes, yes, fine, you win, pay up, everyone.”

“Ah, excellent,” Regulus says once he’s collected his winnings. “Now, I should probably get to work before I get fired—”

“Who’s going to fire you?” Sirius laughs. “You’ve been Bagnold’s assistant for eleven years, I’m sure you’ve got tenure or something, at least until she leaves office.”

“Well, I  _ have _ used all my vacation days already, so I really don’t want to risk anything.”

“Still.”

“I’m going to owl Dumbledore and ask if we can come see Harry’s first Quidditch game,” James declares.

Lily nods approvingly. “Good idea.”

“Oh, come on, we  _ have  _ to go! I’ll make up a Ministry inspection if I need to, but we can’t just let Harry win his first Quidditch game without us there!”

“You’re just trying to rub it in that you won the bet, aren’t you?” Remus asks.

Regulus shrugs. “As far as I’m concerned, I was right and you were all wrong, so I suppose I am, yes. That doesn’t change the fact that we need to be there — unless they’ve changed how they do things in the last twelve years, Hogwarts doesn’t have someone taking pictures during the games, and I want a picture of the  _ exact _ moment Harry catches the Snitch.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's the end! Thanks for following along with this whole thing!


End file.
